Afghanistan: Wrong Mission for Canada
The coolly reasoned case made by a leading expert in international law.
Tipping point nearing.
We are approaching the five-year mark of Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan.
Joint Task Force 2, Canada's special-forces unit, has been active in that country since shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. We know that JTF-2 soldiers transferred detainees to U.S. custody in January 2002, participated in an attack at Tora Bora in December 2002, and transferred detainees to U.S. custody again during the summer of 2005.
The first deployment of regular soldiers came in January 2002, when 750 infantry from the Princess Patricia's Regiment were sent to Kandahar as part of an U.S. counter-insurgency task force. Four of these soldiers were killed, and eight others injured, in a "friendly fire" incident in April 2002.
Then, over a two-year period from August 2003 to October 2005, some 6,000 Canadian soldiers were rotated through Kabul as part of a UN-authorized, NATO-led "international security assistance force" providing security and stability for Afghanistan's new government.
In late 2005, the focus of Canada's military effort reverted to the counter-insurgency mission in Kandahar. The U.S. government, bogged down in Iraq, and with an eye to next month's mid-term elections, was keen to reduce its troop levels. NATO responded by scaling up its presence from 9,000 to around 20,000 soldiers, with most of the new troops coming from Britain, Canada, Denmark and The Netherlands.
Originally, the plan was to expand NATO's responsibilities to include southern Afghanistan by early 2006. But the transition was delayed by concerns, in Paris, Berlin and elsewhere, over the tactics employed in the counter-insurgency mission. For the better part of a year, Canada's soldiers operated as part of the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom, where, despite being placed in charge of ground operations in Kandahar, they remained under more general U.S. operational control. In the end, the French and Germans refused to deploy into the south.
Kandahar is the stronghold of the Taliban, the nearby mountains bordering Pakistan provide a refuge for Al-Qaeda, and the agricultural lowlands are dominated by drug barons. Canada's soldiers face ever-increasing risks as these various forces copy their Iraqi counterparts by using roadside explosives and suicide bombs while, at the same time, coalescing into organized groups of guerrilla fighters. To some extent, the risks have been exacerbated by heavy-handed U.S.-led tactics, especially the use of air power against villages when Taliban or Al-Qaeda members are believed to be present. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of innocent civilians have died in such strikes, prompting angry family members and friends to join the insurgency.
Beyond 'first sign of trouble'
In March 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said: "Canadians don't cut and run at the first sign of trouble."
Yes, indeed. But surely we're beyond the "first sign of trouble" now?
At least 39 Canadian soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan, along with one diplomat. There have likely been additional losses among our special forces, who operate behind a veil of secrecy that extends to the reporting of casualties. Then, there are the hundreds of seriously wounded Canadian soldiers, with lost limbs, blindness, brain damage or other forms of severe psychological harm.
These numbers are sobering. And let's be honest: whatever our political inclination, we all have a tipping point at which we'd call for Canada's troops to be brought home. Nobody -- not even General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan -- is willing to argue that the counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan would be worth the lives of 1,000 Canadian soldiers.
On that basis, it's time to assess where our national tipping point should be. Let's begin by considering the arguments in favour of the mission.
THE ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR
First, it's argued that the mission is necessary to protect Canadians from the threat posed by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. This is a serious argument, but it can be exaggerated. The Taliban do not pose a threat to the existence of Canada. They're not about to invade. Nor are they developing weapons of mass destruction and missiles capable of reaching North America.
The Al-Qaeda elements sheltering behind the Taliban do not pose an existential threat to Canada either. They certainly provide moral and perhaps technical support to aspiring terrorists elsewhere. But if the threat were truly serious, Washington would not have shifted its focus to Iraq. Nor would General Musharraf be allowed to conclude deals with pro-Taliban militants along the border of Afghanistan, while denying NATO forces access to that region.
Clearly, we do have a national interest in containing Al-Qaeda. Yet even if that interest was worth 39 Canadian soldiers' lives, it's not clear that the counter-insurgency mission is making progress towards this goal. After five years of efforts by American, British and Canadian troops, southern Afghanistan has become significantly more dangerous.
Second, it's argued that the counter-insurgency mission is needed to restrict the production of opium. Illegal narcotics are certainly a concern. But despite the presence of Canadian troops, opium production has increased dramatically.
Third, it's argued that the counter-insurgency mission is needed to protect the Afghan people. But, again, are we actually achieving this goal? Today, the average life expectancy in Afghanistan is less than 45 years, and 1,600 mothers out of 100,000 die during childbirth (compared to six out of 100,000 in Canada). What's more, some of the most important posts in the Afghan government are held by former warlords. Some of them stand accused -- by international human rights organizations and other, elected members of the parliament -- of heinous crimes, and of siphoning off billions of dollars of foreign aid.
Fourth, it's argued that NATO's credibility is at stake. But if that's the case, why have so many NATO members refused to step up to the plate? There are 26 NATO countries, and Canada -- with our relatively small population and military -- has made the third-largest contribution to the counter-insurgency mission.
And how much does NATO's credibility matter? Fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO is simply a collection of countries that may or may not choose to co-operate in any given situation. When the United States intervened in Afghanistan in 2001, it chose not to call on NATO for help.
Fifth, it's argued that Canada's credibility would suffer if we withdrew from the counter-insurgency mission. It's certainly true that, within NATO circles, we'd be expected to provide reasonable notice. And so we should. But does anyone regard France or Germany as less credible because they refused to deploy into southern Afghanistan? Does anyone regard Spain or Italy as less credible because they chose to withdraw from Iraq? As Senator Roméo Dallaire has explained, the biggest blow to Canada's credibility today is occurring elsewhere, as we allow a genocide to continue in Darfur.
Sixth, it's argued that Canada's credibility in Washington would suffer. This is a serious argument. But it's also the same argument that was advanced by those who thought Canada should join in the Vietnam War. It's the same argument that was advanced by those who thought Canada should join in the 2003 Iraq War. All of which goes to show that Canadians are better judges of the Canadian national interest than Americans. As long as we provide reasonable notice, Washington has no reason to complain.
THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST
Let's turn to the arguments against the counter-insurgency mission. What are the costs -- above and beyond the all-important cost in lost and shattered young Canadian lives?
There are financial costs. In August 2006, the Polaris Institute estimated that the counter-insurgency mission would cost Canadian taxpayers around $4 billion over two years. That, of course, works out to $2 billion per year. This compares to the $1 billion, over ten years, that Canada is providing for reconstruction and development in Afghanistan, which works out to $100 million per year -- or five per cent of what we're spending on the military mission.
These financial costs also constitute opportunity costs. Four billion dollars could provide a massive amount of development and humanitarian assistance, and not just in Afghanistan.
Wisely spent, this money could save millions of lives, especially in disease and famine-ridden sub-Sahara Africa.
Opportunity missed: Lebanon. Another form of opportunity cost concerns the other missions that the Canadian Forces cannot fulfil because of their current engagement.
Take Lebanon, for instance. On August 11, 2006, the UN Security Council imposed a ceasefire on Hezbollah and Israel. It authorized a peacekeeping operation of 15,000 soldiers with a robust mandate to "use all necessary action in areas of deployment of its forces and as it deems within its capabilities, to ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind."
Many of the peacekeepers have been provided by France, Italy and Spain. Belgium, Finland, Norway and Poland are sending smaller contingents, with Germany and Denmark providing maritime support. Canada is conspicuously absent. Yet Canada has a clear national interest in maintaining the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, since the Middle East conflict has the potential to escalate into a highly destabilizing war with Iran involving attacks on nuclear facilities. Moreover, far more Canadians have personal connections with Israel and Lebanon than with Afghanistan. Last but not least, Canadian soldiers are uniquely suited to peacekeeping in Lebanon. In addition to their considerable experience and training for such missions, the Canadian Forces have the necessary language skills to communicate with Israelis (most of whom speak English) and Lebanese (most of whom speak French).
Opportunity missed: Darfur. Violence-wracked Darfur is another place Canadian peacekeepers could usefully be deployed. Since 2003, more than 200,000 people have been killed, countless women have been raped, and several million people have been forced from their homes. The agents of this destruction -- the Janjaweed (who ride camels and horses) and the Sudanese military (which pushes crude barrel bombs out of the back of cargo planes) -- would be no match for a well-trained, well-equipped Western military.
In May 2006, African countries recognized that they weren't up to the task. The African Union urged the commencement of a UN peacekeeping operation in Darfur "at the earliest possible time." In response, the UN Security Council requested that Secretary General Kofi Annan provide recommendations "on all relevant aspects of the mandate of the United Nations operation in Darfur" including "additional force requirements" and "potential troop-contributing countries." Mr. Annan's office immediately indicated that any force deployed to Darfur would have to include soldiers from developed countries.
Three months later, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1706, formally authorizing the creation of a peacekeeping force for Darfur. It did hold off deploying the force while last-ditch efforts were made to obtain Sudanese consent, but let's be clear: Resolution 1706 authorizes a muscular intervention in Darfur with or without the consent of Khartoum. In the circumstances, a declared willingness to deploy one or two thousand highly trained infantry and the Canadian Army's fleet of Griffin helicopters -- which are not being used elsewhere -- could be just what is needed to create the political will for the deployment to move forward.
Some have argued that Canada's national interest is not engaged in Darfur, at least not as much as it is in Afghanistan. But the argument overlooks two critical points. First, Canada does have an interest in protecting fundamental human rights, and there is no more fundamental right than being protected from genocide. Second, the degree of national interest that we have in any given situation must be balanced against the likely costs, including lost Canadian lives. And as I've said, neither the Janjaweed nor the Sudanese military constitute a serious fighting force.
THE CASE FOR 'PEACEKEEPING'
Some people might decry the opportunities in Lebanon and Darfur as unsuitable for Canadian troops because they constitute "mere" peacekeeping. For almost a decade, Canada's generals, along with a growing collection of politicians and pundits, have asserted that peacekeeping is passé and counter-insurgency wars are the new reality. Yet the turn away from peacekeeping has been a matter of choice rather than necessity. In January 2002, The Globe and Mail reported that "Canada decided to send its troops into a combat mission under U.S. control in Afghanistan rather than participate in the British-led multinational force because it is 'tired' of acting as mere peacekeepers, according to a senior British defence official."
Since when have the generations of Canadian soldiers who risked their lives patrolling the world's conflict zones become "mere" peacekeepers? Yes, peacekeeping requires diplomacy and restraint, but it also takes courage. The myth that peacekeeping is "for wimps" originates in the United States, where it found its ultimate expression in Condoleezza Rice's October 2000 comment that "We don't need to have the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten." Every time I read about the death and destruction in Iraq, I think of this comment, and wish the world had more properly trained and experienced peacekeepers.
COSTS TO CANADA
Reputation. Wrapped up in the distinction between the peacekeeping opportunities in Lebanon and Darfur and the counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan is the additional issue of reputation costs, most notably the cost to Canada's international reputation for independence and objectivity, and thus our ability to lead and persuade on a wide range of issues. Where would we gain the most in terms of our international reputation: continuing with a failing counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan, or leading a humanitarian intervention to stop the genocide in Darfur?
Security. There may even be a security cost to the counter-insurgency mission. Recently foiled terrorist plots in Toronto and London were reportedly motivated, at least in part, by anger at the presence of Western troops in Afghanistan. Canada's Chief of Defence Staff, Rick Hillier, hasn't helped matters by publicly characterizing the insurgents as "detestable murderers and scumbags." One wonders how Muslims around the world feel when they hear language like this being used on Canada's behalf.
Foreign stance. General Hillier's language points to another problem. The counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan could, over time, lead to the development of a Canadian Forces that is focused almost entirely -- in its training, ethos and equipment -- on counter-insurgency missions conducted alongside or for the United States. The long-term consequences of this would be significant, especially for Canadian foreign policy.
And let's be clear, our current policy orientation is leading inexorably to a much longer engagement in the counter-insurgency mission. In August 2005, Canadian Major-General Andrew Leslie said that helping Afghanistan break out of "a cycle of warlords and tribalism" was a "20-year venture." In March 2006, Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier said: "From NATO's perspective, they look at this as a 10-year mission, right? Minimum. There's going to be a huge demand for Canada to contribute over the longer period of time."
Complicit in crime. It's even possible that Canada's involvement in the counter-insurgency mission is contributing to a decline in this country's commitment to strong rules of international humanitarian law.
In 2002, Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan were ordered by their American commander to lay anti-personnel landmines around their camp. When the Canadians refused -- citing our obligations under the 1997 Ottawa Landmines Convention -- American soldiers, who are not subject to the same restrictions, laid the mines for them. More recently, Canadian forces in Kabul and Kandahar have benefited from the protection provided by anti-personnel landmines laid by Soviet forces during the 1980s. The Canadian government argues that the Landmines Convention has not been violated, since the prohibition on the "use" of anti-personnel mines does not extend to reliance on mines laid by others. This is a strained interpretation, and one that hardly reinforces our claim to be the leading proponent of the total elimination of these devices.
Also in 2002, Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan captured detainees and transferred them to U.S. custody. The transfers took place despite the fact that U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had publicly refused to convene the "status determination tribunals" required by the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, to investigate whether individuals captured on the battlefield are prisoners of war. Canada, by choosing to hand the detainees over in these circumstances, also violated the Third Geneva Convention. But the transfers did not undermine the prohibition on torture, since there was -- at that time -- no reason to believe that U.S. forces would mistreat the detainees.
Today we know better. The photographs from Abu Ghraib were only the first pieces of a growing body of evidence indicating that, at best, the U.S. military failed to educate its soldiers about international humanitarian law. At worst, the revelations -- including a series of leaked legal memoranda that seek to justify torture -- suggest a policy of law-breaking that extends all the way up the chain of command, to the Secretary of Defence and perhaps the commander-in-chief himself.
The full scope of the Geneva Conventions no longer applies to Canada's operations in Afghanistan, because our soldiers are there with the full consent of the sovereign government in Kabul. But Canada is still bound by a provision, "Common Article 3," that applies to armed conflicts that are "not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties." It stipulates that "persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms," are absolutely protected from "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture." Common Article 3 also proscribes "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment." Canada, by transferring detainees to a foreign military that has recently committed violations of precisely this kind, has been risking complicity in breaches of the Geneva Conventions.
We've also been taking chances with the 1984 Torture Convention. Article 3 of this treaty decrees that "no state party shall expel, return or extradite a person to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." Given what we now know about practices at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, the possibility that our detainees will be tortured in U.S. custody is real -- as real, perhaps, as if we sent them to Syria.
What's more, the UN Committee on Torture has stated that the term "another state" in Article 3 of the Torture Convention encompasses any additional country to which a prisoner might subsequently be transferred. For this reason, transferring detainees to Afghan custody instead of U.S. custody cannot relieve Canada of responsibility, since Kabul may be expected to comply with a U.S. request for a further, onward transfer. Yet that's precisely what Canada has been doing since December 2005, when Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier signed a detainee-transfer agreement with the defence minister of Afghanistan.
Under the agreement, Afghanistan committed to the humane treatment of any individuals received, and to allow representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit them. At the same time, the agreement explicitly envisages that some detainees will be transferred onwards to the custody of a third country, and does nothing to guard against that country being one in which detainees are at risk of being tortured or otherwise abused. Professor Amir Attaran of the University of Ottawa has accurately described the document as a "detainee laundering agreement," for it enables Canada to move its detainees indirectly into U.S. custody without the scrutiny and approbation that might attach to direct transfers.
Canadians' self-image. These last concerns about international humanitarian law lead into my final point, which concerns the effect that the counter-insurgency character of our mission in Afghanistan might have on how Canadians think of themselves. We like to think that we are "global citizens" uniquely placed to promote a more peaceful, just, inclusive and law-abiding world, but how can engaging in search-and-destroy missions with and for the United States foster this self-identity? Wouldn't stopping genocide be more consistent with how Canadians have, traditionally, preferred their country to behave?
Have we reached our national tipping point with regard to the counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan? Having done my best to assess the arguments for and against, the conclusion, to me, is obvious.
This article is taken from a speech Michael Byers delivered October 5 to Members of Parliament and Senators as part of a "Breakfast on the Hill" lecture series organized by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of War Law: Understanding International Law and Armed Conflict (Douglas & McIntyre, 2005). ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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Grumpy
5 years ago
Comments on "Afghanistan: Wrong Mission for Canada"
The sad, sad Afghan affair. I think that Canada was right to help the USA after 9/11 to invade Afghanistan and fight the Taliban. But when the Americans largely left Afghanistan to illegaly invade Iraq (the British Courts are now saying that Britian did not have the legal right to invade) before they finished the job, Canada should have left.
9/11 was not an act of terror, but an act of war, by a very intelligent opponent. Any country harbouring the opponent was fair game for the USA, but Iraq wasn't.
Dear old Saddam had anyone who even smelled El Quida or Taliban executed. No ters there! But no Bush and his cronies illegaly invaded Iraq for its oil and are now paying the price.
Armed forces are not for peace keeping, they are taught to kill, pure and simple. That Canada's armed forces have been used for peace keeping has been a strictly political one. The Liberals used the peace keeping argument to starve the armed forces of money.
As it stands now the chocolate soldiers who run this country will send every Canadian soldier into (god I hate this Americanism)
, to kiss ass with Bush. Why do Canadian politicians now so love the Americans, in years past they would have been called traitors!
James Burns
5 years ago
This is a piece of propaganda that has crept in to justify "preemptive" attacks. Armed forces are first a deterrent, and second a means of attack. Armed forces will perform the role they are ordered to perform. Whether they do that role well or not depends on the quality of their training. If they are taught only to "kill, pure and simple" then they will not perform a peacekeeping role effectively. It's one of the reasons why American forces are notoriously ineffective at peacekeeping. They are taught to shoot anything that moves if they are fired upon. Not the best sort of training if you are patrolling a marketplace croweded with civilians.
There are a lot of people in the military who want it to be all about the killing and the glory. That's why a lot of them joined up in the first place. But the role of the armed forces in any society should be set by that society, not by a bunch of bloodthirsty lunatics who think the only role of the armed forces is to kill. In fact, limiting them purely to that role is an immense waste of resources, particularly in times of low conflict. Combat effectivness should absolutlely be a part of military training, but the idea that the military's only role is to kill is an argument used by propagandists to justify military aggression in times of conflict.
jimtan
5 years ago
NATO doesn’t need to fight a full-fledged war if its primary target is opium production. Karzai and the Americans had promised payment if farmers stopped growing opium. They have not made the payments.
One estimate places the value of the opium industry to Afghanistan as $2.5 billion. Payments of just $1 billion would be sufficient to wean Afghanistan from its dependency on this industry. Instead, America and NATO would rather fight a bloody war to assert their dominance.
The drug trade is real. But, it’s just an excuse for old-fashion imperialism. Russia paid the price. We will too!
Why do westerners favour the use of force in third war countries. Yes, they become impatient with the graft, inefficiency and inertia. However, there are two syndromes of which one is poorly understood.
The first is “the white man’s burdenâ€. This is a belief that western systems are better, and should be imposed on others. This rationale has led to the imperialism that Murray Dobbin so detests. And, western imperialism has often been vile.
The other syndrome is less well known. It is the “white man’s follyâ€. Industrialized countries are integrated and cohesive. Germany and Japan put up a terrific fight in WWII. However, all resistance ended when the capital surrendered. The center defines the whole entity.
White men look at third world countries and see weak societies. The country is not united and the center is not strong. It should be easy to take the place over?
The problem is that the center is not meant to be strong. The center is a vacuum that sucks you in.
The British built a huge empire. They found that it was unsatisfactory to be co-rulers with the locals. In the end, they had to take a place over completely and build a colonial administration down to the district level.
Yes, it is possible for westerners to prevail in weak third-world country. But, you have to rule personally and invest heavily.
This is something that the Americans failed to do after the fall of the Taliban. There was a vacuum in Kabul and Karazi could not fill it. Today, NATO is still not investing enough for the scope of its mission.
Sometimes, the vacuum becomes a black hole. The Russians were willing to invest heavily. However, the locals were strongly supported by the west and Muslim fighters poured into Afghanistan. The Russians couldn’t be defeated militarily, but they couldn’t win either.
The Russians choose to withdraw their army and support their local allies with money and arms. Eventually, those allies were defeated, and all of Russia’s efforts were lost.
Today, NATO is staring at a black hole. Their inept diplomacy and actions have stirred up resentment and resistance. The center (Afghan government) is weak because it is corrupt and distrusted. The rebels are strongly supported from their strongholds in Pakistan.
What is the most likely outcome of this example of the “white man’s follyâ€. The west is not going to invest enough. The locals won’t submit unless you crush them. The west will fail, and the Taliban will rise again.
Can this be avoided?
gilarthur
5 years ago
I agree that it is very sad, and terrible for family members, to lose a soldier son or daughter in any situation.
This "war" is an interesting one, to say the least, however I cannot help but think that if you are going to play the soldier role, part of that is getting shot at, blown up or otherwise killed. That is the way the game works. If you join any army and there is action of some kind, you are gonna run the risk of getting killed. Period!
It worked that way when we played "war" as kids. You were "killed in action". In that case, though, you revived and went home that night to sleep. In the real world, it does not work that way.
The military game at this level is for real. End of argument!
Whether or not the war is "right" or "just" makes no difference. If the guys in charge say you attack someone, you attack that person. You patrol. You get shot at. You die. You swore an oath. It is not a kids game when you join the Canadian Military... or any other military.
Some look a being in the services as another form of welfare. An "relatively easy" way, in Canada, to do your 20 or 25 years and get a pension. You even learn a trade if you want.
This stage of the game in Afghanistan or elsewhere is one that many never figured they would have to play. I feel sorry for the family, as I said, and I feel badly that the young people are the ones who usually pay the ultimate price, for it is the young who do join "armies/navies/air force". But, to moan and groan because the soldiers are actually dying is sheer silliness.
What else have soldiers done forever?
I would bet that the majority of soldiers really understand this part of the game, but hoped they would never have to pay the price. They lost the gamble.
I have lots more to say, but this got too long as it is. Sorry.
Bobb999
5 years ago
I see the Canwest propaganda machine today published a new opinion poll/article supposedly showing 57% of Canadians now support the use of combat troops in Afghanistan (including 45% in Quebec). The implication is Canadians support the Afghanistan mission.
But I'm highly sceptical of this poll. They do not list the actual questions asked, or the order. Ipsos Reid's propagandists-for-hire were enlisted.
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=4fedce12-9a14-4a5c-aba6-e70002a38817&k=63439
Ipsos/Canwest have little credibilty now after publishing a poll during the recent war in Lebanon. They carefully avoided asking if respondents actually supported Israel's military actions in Lebanon. Instead, they simply asked a generic question "do you support Israel's right to defend itself?", an obvious red herring, which did not address the Lebanon situation at all. Yet they used the poll in order to claim, in an article and a screaming headline, that Canadians supported Israel's military actions in Lebanon!
Other (more legitimate) polls showed otherwise.
It's equivalent to asking "do you support
America's right to defend itself against terror?", and then claiming a "yes" result would imply support for invading Iraq, Guantanamo, torture, etc.!
Canwest and Ipsos Reid are manipulative lying propagandists, apparently without shame.
I'm guessing this new poll on Afghanistan
is similarly tainted and lacking credibility...more manufactured "facts" to bolster Canwest's hawkish position on the middle east. Something should be done about those evil Asper "twins". Bankruptcy, and obscurity is what they deserve.
alive
5 years ago
gilarthur
Right on!
It is about time we stop this mass hysteria if a soldier.fireman or policeman gets killed in the line of duty!
They willingly choose an occupation that has certain charms and advantages, hence they must be ready to accept the downsides, as must their relatives!
There are many occupations where one can get hurt and killed, but we do not see, for instance steelworkers, from all over north america march with drums and pipers when a man falls to his death somewhere!
So, it is time to get real!
Soldiers are pawns that generals (or should I say governments) can send to certain death!
Going to was is the easy way to "solve" problems!
It also helps keep a crooked government in power.
We should examine solutions that do not involve hate and killings, we are all living on the same earth.
Are we not evolved enough to realize that nobody wants to be "a developing country " forever?
Time has come to share or face death!
alive
5 years ago
sorry, going to WAR is the easy way to solve problems!
Nana
5 years ago
Although sanctioned by the UN, the attack on Afghanistan after 9/11 was both ridiculous and frightening in terms of international law. There was absolutely no connection of any Afghanis to the destruction. Even leaving aside the growing evidence of 9/11 having been an inside job, the US attacked without a shred of evidence against either the Taliban or Osama.(the perps were supposedly all Saudis, remember?) The comparison has often been made with the IRA violence that went on for years, and remember Britain did not bomb Ireland nor was it ever considered. The world was suckertapped by the hypnotic spell of those buildings collapsing, but the invasion of Afghanistan was truly a war crime nevertheless and the UN sanctioning of an attack on innocents a fig leaf.
We should withdraw as soon as possible
Bobb999
5 years ago
An article out today suggests the Pakistan government's ISI intelligence service is not only tolerant of the Taliban, but is actively involved in aiding and abetting them, including sponsoring ISI training camps for Taliban fighters.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=JJYLH3L4SJNDPQFIQMGCFGGAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2006/10/06/wafghan06.xml
Afghanistan is a no win for Canada, when our supposed ally, Pakistan, is giving support and sanctuary to the very group
group we're fighting against, with limited success.
Is the Canadian public really so clueless that they will continue to support our mission there under such a situation, where stalemate and rising death tolls is the most likely scenario? I don't think so.
wstander
5 years ago
Byers says: "There are 26 NATO countries, and Canada -- with our relatively small population and military -- has made the third-largest contribution to the counter-insurgency mission."
I am not sure what the comparable he is talking about when he says "third-largest". I do know that if the comparable is fatalities, Canada, based on country population, has made by far the largest contribution . Only the US is close (341 deaths- population 300 million), and the US fatality numbers have decreased markedly as they withdrew troops to go off to Iraq. Canada has suffered 39 deaths in Afghanistan (31 in 2006 alone- 20 since August 2006 alone). The total UK deaths since 2001 are 40. The total deaths, for Australia (1- population 20 million), France (9- pop-61 million) Italy (9-pop 58 million) Germany (18- pop 82 million) combined since 2001 are 37. [source icasualties.org/oef]. I am unaware of any unique Canada-Aghanistan relationship, or strategic interest that justifies this slaugher of Canadian soldiers.
mjf
5 years ago
The French were entrenched in Algeria and could have stayed there forever but their government could not stand the political cost. The Americans could have stayed in Vietnam forever but their government could not take the political cost. These are classic examples that seem to have been forgottten in Palestine, in Iraq or now in Afghanistan. Political leaders would rather cause thousands of deaths than appear weak, and they will continue the military adventure until defeated not by the enemy, but by their fall in the public opinion of their own country.
Logjam 603
5 years ago
so what does the Left have agaisnt the poor, long suffering people of Afghanistan that you will sacrifce them to the tender mercies of the Taliban??
why does the Left want to diss the United Nations on one of its most critical missions ??
Its Friday, I am wearing red. I support the the troops, the mission, the Prime Minister and this country.
Get yer red on kiddies, time to start living in the real world sans your rose colored glasses and realize we need to protect the helpless - the world has asked us and we have responded.
And Whacko Jacko bin Taliban Laydown wants to abondon the Afghanistanis ??
Not on Canada's watch.
murdock
5 years ago
jimtan asks:
Can this be avoided?
In the favorite parlance of the Conservative Party we must cut and run. The only problem with that is we must either fly out, but then we have NO HEAVY AIRLIFT CAPABILITY (thank you LIEberal Party of Canada) to get out that way on our own; so we must lease or borrow or hitch a lift with someone else. That someone else is either the US (whoops sorry all our aircraft are busy) or the Russians (whom will charge us 3x normal rates while laughing all the way to the bank that we have been so stupid as to not learn from the Russian mistakes). The other way out is by sea, but then Afghanistan is a LAND LOCKED country. We will need to march to Pakistan, China or thru one of the northern 'stans' to reach a port. One can only imagine the death toll that such a march would bring as it would take at least 2-3 days to get to a friendly territory, but if that was Pakistan, the death-march fighting would likely continue another day or more as every mountain fighter that wanted to would decend on the column to reduce it and ensure that the majority only got to leave 'feet first'.
The way out comes at a moments notice with no prior warning. A massive air effort, with escourt airforces capable of ground attack in mountainous regions.
The French and Germans were savvy to all of this, we have mountains here in Canada, why did we not see all of this also? Oh yeah, the LIEberals cut the military funding so much that reserve units that practiced mountain warfare first lost their officers, then thier pay for exercises, then their recruitment dropped off to nothing, then the 'armories' were closed and converted to other uses. The rot in the Canadian military started with 'unification' in 1967, the RCMP did something similar in 1973, their rotting is starting to smell now...
murdock
5 years ago
alive re-wrote:
on the war - trade diplomacy scale, WAR should always be the LAST resort, sadly with 'gunboat' diplomacy that this 'cowboy' president has it is the FIRST resort.
the reality is WAR NEVER solves problems, it always creats more complex ones for later leaders // generations to solve.
murdock
5 years ago
mjf wrote:
and herin lies the reason why the age of the Nation State, supported my mass violence is coming to an end.
why there is little to be materially gained thru military misadventure, such as mjf correctly pointed out.
The tools of the merchant are needed here in Afghanistan, not the warrior.
Coyote
5 years ago
I am here reminded of General Hillier's, "Kick Taliban butt", comment and view of the war in Afghanistan.
Which echoes with the Amerika The Brave strains of, "Bring 'em on!"
Even the outright prematurely ejaculated Bushtit foolery of, "Mission Accomplished".
What a goddamn bullshitt failed state even we and our so-called leaders are. Always marching to war to the beat of somebody else's drummer-, when they’re not licking their boots..
First it was the British Empire, in my youth. Now it's the no less bloody and imperialist, hiding behind the smokescreen of so-called freedom and democracy, US Empire.
What a chest thumping, sloganeering, self-righteous set of fools we become when our political reactionaries choose to take up the latest version of "the Whiteman's burden."
And I don't blame our young soldiers. (Been there, done that.) They're like guard dogs you train and keep on a leash. Loyal to their pack master and, outside of their killing expertise, about as deep in their understanding of the world as a saucer of water. They're always gung ho and ready to go. We need and train them to be that way. Armies work hard at inculcating that "go get 'em", do as you're told, mad dog mentality into them.
It's their owner who has the responsibility to know when and when it is not appropriate to let them off the leash.
Blame the owner. Our State and us.
[And hell, though the UN in its current Big Power Security Council configuration is much a creature of the will of the US Empire, and hence largely useless in my view, nobody, when it has on those rare occassions dared not serve this Amerikan interest, has dissed the UN more than the extreme right everywhere, but especially the extreme Republican right in the US. They have ever, whenever the UN has not served their interest, talked of the need to withdraw from that august body. For them, in their fawning over the US Empire, here no less examplified by our own Logjam, it is largely a matter of whose ox is being gored.]
cabsavy
5 years ago
“But does anyone regard France or Germany as less credible because they refused to deploy into southern Afghanistan?â€
It would be difficult for those two countries to become less credible.
If we take a look at the last two groups of Canadian soldiers killed, one group was handing out food and candy to school children when attacked by a courageous Taliban “freedom†fighter, and the other was attacked while guarding a road construction crew. They were killed while engaging in exactly the kind of peacekeeping and reconstruction the author is pushing.
As for Darfur, what is the point of pulling out of one black hole just to sink into another? Is Michael Byers going to call for us to pull out there too as soon as we take causalities, or cause some?
We need to decide what role as a nation Canada should have. Do we try and help a repressed population when asked by the UN, or do we leave that to others?
murdock
5 years ago
Logjam 603 posted:
nothing against them really, nor - I think, as I do not consider myself 'left' nor would Coyote or G West let me in, do they want to be culpable or on any way to blame for INCREASING the suffering of the ordinary Afghani. Increasing that suffering by prolonging war, by allowing minefields to persist (because we need them as much or more than the Soviets did). To end a conflict one side or the other must stop, if we consider ourselves 'peacekeepers' (something we really stopped doing during Rwanda) then what is wrong with us being the first to stop fighting?
again I cannot speak for 'the left' however; this is not a 'critical UN mission' it was an illegal invasion brought about by a causus-belli (the towers of deception). The Taliban refused to hand over Bin Laden at first, then recognizing the threat they tried to negotiate thru Syrian diplomats. Just like Japan in WWII tried to use Soviet contact to open discussions with the US, it was known of and ignored. The tall hat cowboy in the whitehouse drew his sixgun and 'smoked-out' the terrorist from his hole? (have you not noticed the total lack of action in really catching Bin Laden?) To get the smoking out happening, the US invaded - totally alone. Suddenly realizing they were in over their very small heads, the US began pushing its weight around in New York at the UN and in Brussels in NATO circles, until they got their way and had some other saps, uhh, allies to fill the body-bags.
good keep on being an idealogue and serving the interests of others, until that house of cards falls on your head.
I think you need to read more Orwell.
Protect? are you completely deluded? MORE, yes MORE death has resulted from the US-led actions in Afghanistan than at any time during the Taliban rule.
It was only after the US attacks that MSF, a real life-protecting organization LEFT the country, after being there before and during the SOVIET occupation.
The US operations have stirred up a huge hornets nest and another generation of Afghani children will have to suffer before anything real can be accomplished.
The NDP proposals are quite insane, and not realistic, but then they will never form government - so why waste time pouring over them?
No, on Canada's watch, the watchmen will be executed.
Mark my words:
100% casualties.
Bobb999
5 years ago
Interesting angle on Afghanistan in a Star article today:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1160085010255&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795
"...What Harper omitted to add is that, under his watch, the Canadian International Development Agency is also extremely unaccountable and does not tell Canadians how it spends their money in Afghanistan.
...Unfortunately, the information CIDA offers the Canadian public about its Afghan activities is incomplete and inaccurate.
...Surely Canadians deserve to hear the positive results from their second front of battle — the one for hearts and minds — in less than eight months?
...The Conservative government tells Canadians that we are at war in Afghanistan, not for reasons of belligerence, but for reasons of bringing development.
... it is overdue that Harper compel CIDA to divulge timely, accurate accounts of its expenditures, and the audit reports that prove or disprove whether its use of tax money has improved the lives of the poor and war-shocked, as Canadians want."
Logjam 603
5 years ago
why the Lefties use Darfur as a red herring is beyond comprehension . . .
canada news
Friday » October 6 » 2006
Don't join Darfur force, Sudan warns
Canada, others told signing on for UN mission a 'hostile act'
Steven Edwards
The Ottawa Citizen
Friday, October 06, 2006
UNITED NATIONS - Sudan has sent threatening letters to Canada and other countries it believes could join a United Nations force being planned for Darfur.
The missives warn Khartoum would consider any move to join the force a "hostile act" -- a statement military experts say is tantamount to a threat to wage war on the UN troops.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said Canada's commitment in Afghanistan means there is little chance of deployment elsewhere, but some critics of the Afghan campaign have suggested Darfur would be a safer mission.
Sudan is believed to have included Canada among the countries it warned about deployment because Canadian officials attended a Sept. 25 meeting about the world body's efforts to build a force for Darfur. The UN Security Council this summer authorized the deployment of about 17,500 UN troops to the region to relieve a 7,000-strong African Union force that has been unable to keep a lid on the violence there.
But the Arab-led Sudanese government, which many believe is sponsoring attacks by Arab militia on civilians suspected of supporting Darfur rebel groups, has said it doesn't want the UN soldiers there.
"Canada received a copy of the letter and we are very concerned by the continued rejection of a UN transition," said Rejean Beaulieu, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs.
The United States reacted by calling an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. "This is a direct challenge to the authority of the Security Council in its efforts to alleviate the tragedy in Darfur, and clearly requires a strong (council) response," said John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the UN. "They're trying to intimidate troop-contributing countries."
Gray
5 years ago
Firstly allow me to complement Mr. Byers on the most reasoned, and best argued article I've seen on Canada's involvement in Afghanistan in The Tyee so far. I tip the other other way in my conclusions, but I respect Mr Byer's views and his regard for the substantive facts of the situation.
For me at least the essential issue is; does Canada's involvement mean that there is a better chance young afghans will be able to go to school one day and make there own choice about their lives? I too have questions about how achievable this is but to not try guarantees it can't be achieved. I believe that we can help that post medieval society but that there will be a cost.
Frank
5 years ago
If the Sudanese army is so weak then why can't the African Union do the job? Sounds like they're not as weak as claimed.
Perhaps the UN should send some troops but why would it have to be Canadians anyway? We don't have an army big enough to do every job. We certainly can't go into Lebanon too. How about Brazil and Mexico sending some troops? or Australia and Japan? Doesn't have to be us.
As for Afghanistan, we're going to lose because we don't have the means of winning. We probably need 100,000 troops. We need to expand the war. Turn on the corrupt Northern Alliance. Overwhelmn the Taliban. Buy a window of peace to build infrastructure and a functioning economy where Afghans don't need or wish to grow opium because they can make more money doing something else.
If the Taliban then licks their wounds and comes back we'll have an allied population with us and it'll be us fighting on friendly ground, not them. Eventually the Taliban will wither on the vine and the Afghans will be safe.
Since we don't have the means to win the war, why are we there? Byers makes some good points but really the only one that matters is the 3rd one, we're there to protect the Afghans from a ruthless bunch of fanatics. (Unfortunately we should also be there to protect them from our corrupt allies) If the Afghan people, the actual Joe on the street, want us there we should stay there, just as during the Spanish Civil War we should have intervened beyond the International Brigades to help the Spanish people against Franco.
If we're wrong and the Afghan people don't want us there, or we're only making things worse then we should leave. Its really quite simple.
mjf
5 years ago
Russia (Soviet Union?) had 100,000 soldiers in Afghanistan.
Coyote
5 years ago
I mightn't vote to allow you into respectable "left" society, Murdock, but I still much prefer your kind of right libertarian to the current crop of neocons. More actual depth of thinking going on between your ears than any of this latter crew. So you get that much of a nod of recognition from me. :-)
But then I have of late been forming the view anyway, listening to you and Lou Dobbs for the US version on CNN, for example, that there is a greater degree of natural affinity on many issues, with very important differences nonetheless, that flows between you right libertarions and us left libertarians, than is generally recognized or conceded.
If you want my frank opinion.
On the issue of the nation, however, and many others, we will simply have to duke it out. :-)
Truman Green
5 years ago
Same old question I used to ask my debating opponents during the Viet Nam War:
"And exactly what would a victory look like, anyway."
Which prompts a remembrance of that American colonel who claimed they had to burn down a village to save it.
There are power groups in the world who need war, eh, you guys.
The same likely suspects.
Incidentally, I thought the Americans already defeated the Taliban a few years ago.
So as long as you guys are debating the appropriateness of Canadians being in this particular war, the warmongers have won.
The war will drag on until the profits have all been made and the American dollar has been buttressed, then everybody'll just come home--seven or eight hundred Canadians in body bags--and Ignatieff, who'll be Prime Minister by then, will just get on with his work of handing Canada over to the United States.
And Canadians will wonder: What happened?
Frank
5 years ago
Yes, but Russia also had to fight a US-armed enemy with better weapons than they had. And they probably motivated many Afghans to fight against them being as it was kind of obvious they weren't there to make Afghanistan a better place. Canada wouldn't face either of those problems. We just don't have 100,000 available troops so the ones that are there now are really only there to show the flag and die so we can say we tried.
Coyote
5 years ago
Goddamn, you can be spot on Truman.
When you're hot you're hot, lad. :-)
Alcibiades
5 years ago
To Gray: In a word 'NO'. Canada's involvement - in a military way - will in fact make the prospects for Afghan students and children less, not more, positive.
There are all kinds of other positive things we can do with and for Afghans - now and in the future. We shouldn't be wasting our time, money and personnel on this lost cause.
Jack's
5 years ago
Alive wrote..
For Christ's sake - it's not about soldiers choosing their occupations - it's about whether or not they are fighting for something worth fighting (& dieing) for.
Politicians and generals are the ones making the wrong decisions here - and it's the ordinary soldiers who pay the price of those decisions.
There is no threat of Canada being invaded by the Taliban - yet we are in Afghanistan doing our job (along with the U.S.) of invading their country.
Canada's war machine is called "National Defense" and there is nothing defensive about our being there and dieing there.
hannibal
5 years ago
For all those interested in Harpo's prospects of remaining in his seat .
Read this :http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1160085010261
Salishsea
5 years ago
The Afghan government - the one we are sending men and women to die for - has a constitution that ensures that civil laws will not contradict Islamic Law, and a chief supreme court justice who upholds the UN Declaration on Human Rights with the exception of the clasues on freedom of speech, freedom of religion and equal rights for men and women.
Is that the kind of thing we die for as Canadians? If our troops are going to see action and help people I would rather see them do it in places like Darfur where an acute tragedy requires active help and support to save lives. That's not a red herring - it's a plan for a better use of our troops.
We need to leave there. It is neither a war we started nor is it one we will finish. We will simply be there for a few years throwing young men and women into their graves in the aid of a cause our leaders. Our reasons for going to war there will be forgotten by those who we are trying to please, and with the expection of a few Afghanis whose lives may have been spared by Canadian soldiers, our legacy in that country will be moot.
It's sad.
(more on the constitution and rights stuff here: http://uscirf.gov/countries/publications/currentreport/2006annualRpt.pdf#page=1 - careful, it's a .pdf. Go to page 199).
hannibal
5 years ago
Hardy,har har:
That Ipsos - Reid Goebbels network poll is a frigging joke .
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20061001/afghanistan_poll_061001/20061001?hub=TopStories
These are the true results at least ones I have more faith in than Goebbels nonsense the wholly owned propaganda subsidiary of the Neo-Nazi movement .
This poll was just completed last week and Harpo hass done nothing but a stupid duck dance around the issue .
Nana
5 years ago
Those who founded the glorious "International of Islamic Terror, Al-Qaeda, probably knew too little about common use of Arabic language to know that by using this name for their organization, they risked becoming the laughing stock of everybody who speaks the Arabic "public" language.
Yet more evidence we've been had!
murdock
5 years ago
mjf,
at the end the Soviets, and allies numbered 500,000 in order to 'escourt' the departing forces. they lost hundreds of HIND armoured helicopters in this 3 week operation to STINGER-2 & 3 missiles. There are likely hunreds more STINGERS that have not yet been fired. We, in Canada anyway, have nothing like the HIND and any air-support of such a mission is going to be slaughtered.
Like Breir Rabbit we are stuck to this tar baby.
murdock
5 years ago
too funny Nana!
Kind of like calling the men whom frequent the 'red-light district' Johns?
ROFLMAO
Nana
5 years ago
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/03/141259
Whoops, what was it Jack Layton said?
Working Man
5 years ago
I think there is a big difference between "supporting our troops" and supporting the war in Afghanistan. I have great support for our troops. They are professional and real, everyday Canadians.
The war, however, is futile and useless. No foreign power has ever managed to install a government of its choice in a country that is largely, and always has been, lawless.
biscotti
5 years ago
Since 9/11 our government has spent over $4 billion on military operations in Afghanistan, but less than $215 million on UN peacekeeping.
It’s no surprise that our reputation as a peacekeeping nation has suffered - at least outside Canada - in recent years. But in small town BC, the Black Press newspapers continue to perpetuate the myth that the Afghan mission is about peacekeeping and that we must support this war to support our troops.
Of the 62,941 soldiers currently deployed in fifteen UN peacekeeping operations around the world, just 11 are Canadian. We do not even rank among the top 50 of the 78 countries that contribute to the UN peacekeeping operations. Bangladesh has nearly 1,000 times more troops than Canada serving as peacekeepers.
Worth reading: "Canada's Fallen - Understanding Canadian Military Deaths in Afghanistan", written by defence analysts Steven Staples and Bill Robinson and published by Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Available at
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/Reports/2006/09/CanadasFallen/index.cfm?pa=BB736455
From Project Ploughshares, "Afghanistan: From good intentions to sustainable solutions" by Ernie Regehr
http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/monitor/mons06f.pdf
Also,the latest edition of the newsletter "Press for Conversion!"from The Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade explains just who makes up the current Afghan government that we are supposed to support: http://coat.ncf.ca/
Enjoy ;-)
and then keep the heat on our MPs to get out of there.
Coyote
5 years ago
Working Man,
I can't keep track of the two faces of Working Man here. There is one bad ass one, sloping forehead and wide flared nostrils-, and there is a "good" one. You are obviously the latter.
The war, however...
Bang on.
We need them at home, perhaps even forming an armed "Marines" unit, or Ranger force, to defend our north,, and back up a sea presence there against the US who is challenging our sovereignty in the area. And then we need to be stationing our forces along the 49th, to guard against the dangers that might emerge there, if, whenever and as we finally find the cojones to assert our own territorial, economic and political sovereignty over the Manifest Destiny ambitions of the US Empire.
(And mayhaps, to deter these goddamn Murdockesque BC and Alberta separatists-, should they suddenly turn into Bomber McVie's on us. Maybe even slap some sense into them. :-)
The point being that we have a greater need for our own forces, here at home, training them up in guerrilla as well as standing army formations, for the actual "worst case scenario" defence of the Canadian nation, instead of "over there" fighting in the rich man's cause for the US Empire, against an impoverished people constantly beset across history by one foreign invader or another.
The Afghans will progress better too, the more and the sooner we and all other outsiders just leave them alone. They're just having so much goddamn trouble getting it together because if it ain't the Greeks and Alexander The Great, then its the goddamn British Empire, and no sooner are they driven out than its the bloody Soviets, followed in rapid succession by the US Empire and its bootlicks wanting to build a pipeline through their territory, which includes us.
No wonder they're so godammed poor, mired in religious funamentalism, and beset by backward social relations. They haven't had a period of peace long enough to get that side of their act together.
What do ya fuggin' expect?
alive
5 years ago
Jack:
Why am I upsetting you? My post said exactly what you also brought up here, that the government makes the decisions!
About the mass hysteria when somebody dies, that applies as much to policemen and firefigthers: those are professions that attract certain people who like to skirt danger. So, they choose it and so be it.
Umslopogaas
5 years ago
I am sure if Afghanistan is left alone it will evolve a government at least as benign as the one the has evolved in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.
The lack of prosperity, lack of civil rights and lack of overall freedoms that exist in Zimbabwe do not seem to concern the mighty USA, the morally bankrupt British, or even squeaking Jack. So why is Afghanistan any different?
Canada needs to extricate itself from the mess that the Liberals have gotten us into - but God help the Afghani people who trusted us to help them. When we pull out, the day of reckoning with the Taliban will not be a joyful one and a lot of their blood will be on Canada's hands. A Rwanda type situation is going to occur all over again.
I think our soldiers should be at home guarding our schools. Censorship should firmly applied, preventing the media from wallowing in sensationalism that promotes copy-cats to shoot up schools on an almost weekly basis.
Bobb999
5 years ago
The "battle of the opinion polls" on Afghanistan is something to behold. It would be funny if the subject wasn't so serious, with many lives at stake.
Compare the Canwest/Ipsos reid poll http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=4fedce12-9a14-4a5c-aba6-e70002a38817&k=63439 out today claiming popular support for a Canadian combat role in Afghanistan, to
a CTV/Decima poll (Thanks, hannibal for posting!) http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20061001/afghanistan_poll_061001/20061001?hub=TopStories conducted just a few weeks previous that showed popular opposition to Canada's
military role there.
Hannibal and I agree that Canwest enlists Ipsos Reid to design phoney polls to obtain predetermined results conducive to Canwest's manure spreading agenda.
Besides the problem of non-divulgment of actual questions in the Canwest poll article,and their previous track record of devious polling, I notice CTV's sample was 2,000+, about double Canwest's 1,000+ sample. Thus CTV's sample size is more reliable with a smaller margin of error.
Canwest is the sleaziest media oufit this side of the US's Faux News.
hannibal
5 years ago
Too right Bob999:
Couldn't agree more.Nor is there an indication of how many were polled or what the margin of error is in the Goebbels poll.
I emailed Global and told them they must think the majority of Canadian's are stupid if we are to believe their numbers .
There is no doubt, this is pure propaganda.
mikev
5 years ago
In this argument about if we should pull out now because we are facing serious casualties, I don't feel like my opinion is very welcome.
I don't think we should have ever gone there in the first place. I feel very lonely with that opinion when all of the argument is about if we should pull out now because of the casualties, where the fact we should have gone in the first place is assumed. I don't think anyone should have gone there in the first place. The UN lost credibility in my eyes by sanctioning invasion, and then lost more when there was no Uniting for Peace resolution to stop the invasion of Iraq, and is now losing more while people die in Darfur, and a bunch more when Israel was free to run rampant in Lebanon for a month and more. The opposite of things that Emporer Bush II thinks harm UN credibility, another reason I don't feel like my opinion is very welcome. So yes I do think we should get out now, but I find it very insulting when people assume it's because of the casualties. It's because it's wrong to be there.
Casualties are horrible anywhere, but even worse when they die for nothing. I don't think it's that much of a tragedy when a soldier dies - or a policeman. That's what they do, it's what they sign up for. It's why we consider them heroes. At least when they die for a good cause. We should feel for the loss of their families, but if we get all worked up about the tragicness of their deaths, it seems to me like we're calling them pussies. I imagine that's another opinion of mine that's not very welcome. So the casualties have nothing to do with me thinking we should get out of there, that we should never have gone there in the first place, but the feeling that they are pointless does weigh on me.
Arguments in Favour:
1. Protect us from the threat - there is no threat. Emporer Bush II saying that terrorists threaten the American Way of Life should be insulting to Americans. 9/11 could have happened every weekend for the last 5 years and there'd still be plenty of buildings left standing and plenty of Americans left breathing.
2. Restrict Opium - the Taliban were doing great at that. We should be totally embarrassed at how we're doing.
3. Protect the Afghanis - From themselves? The Taliban may not have been the greatest government, but they were a functioning government. What do they have now??
4. NATO - for fuq's sake, when will we disband that historical society?
5. Canadian Credibility - What's more important - the opinion of the USA or the opinion of the rest of the world? So far we've done more harm than good to our credibility.
6. Canadian Credibility in Washington - Is there really any difference between world credibility and credibility in Washington - at least as far as the mainstream media and our government is concerned? (Yes there most certainly is, but nobody will talk about it).
Arguments Against:
It's immoral! What else needs to be said??
"Wrong Mission for Canada" - yes, obviously, but as well laid out and logical as this article is it still seems milque toast to me. Why do I feel so lonely? Arguments about who has the most per capita casualties and polling procedures!?!? Forget about when we should get out, aren't there any other people who can see we never should have gone?
Bobb999
5 years ago
hannibal: Good for you for e-mailing Canwest to voice your scepticism.
I went on Ipsos Reid's site to try to find more poll details but they're not available. I'm thinking of e-mailing I.E. to suggest they may be doing serious damage to their reputation and credibility by colluding with Canwest to mislead the Canadian public.
There's also CAMRO (Cdn. Assoc. of Mkt. Rsrch. Orgs.) that I.E. likely belongs to. They have a set ethical standards mkt. rsrch. cos. are expected to adhere
to if they want to have CAMRO's seal of approval as an ethical co. A complaint to them might be worth lodging too.
The Soviet Union had "Pravda" (I think Putin's got it today too), while Canada has Canwest Global!
hannibal
5 years ago
Good info Bob :
I'll avail myself of this and write to them to lodge a formal complaint with regards to their polling technique .
To my mind the only way they could have gotten that result is by polling only Alberta and perhaps Saskatchewan .
That is almost a 40.point swing in less than a week .
Hamid Karzai must be one powerful orator to have had that kind of effect on the electorate .
hannibal
5 years ago
Ooops! Forgot .
CAMRO's
Bobb999
5 years ago
hannibal:
I have doubts too about Karzai's powers of persuasion! Especially with the Cdn. death toll continuing to climb, arguing against us being there.
Thanks for the CAMRO URL. You've helped inspire me to do some complaining too.
One of my projects for the weekend.
Can't hurt to try, can it?
DPL
5 years ago
A couple of times some folks ask things about the wounded and who has been looking after them. Danger pay stopped the day they got shot,or blown up. Now it seems some of the parents are asking those questions and good old Steve and Co. are deciding how they can give the crippled, some money and not call it danger pay. It's not a new situation. In my flying trade we got flying pay, the ground crew some times got risk allowance, which was a lot less. Many non aircrew trades travelled world wide with no extra benefits. Some aircrew trades had to fly so many hours a quarter or lose their flying pay. I was in one that didn't have that requirement. Why not? who knows. The government has always been a bit tight when it comes to such allowances. The in theatre pay may or may not be factored into pensions, and a lot of folks simply don't think about it much, because in their minds it won't happen to them. But when they do get wounded and the effects may last the rest of their lives, they have to be protected. I've been in countries where the military wounded sit on the street corner begging. Military come in handy now and again, and the rest of the time are considered a burden on the budget.
Sure let's support the troops but lets get our collective rear ends out of a war we can't possibly win. By the way I saw a article this evening where support for Bushe's adventures is in the toilet.
hannibal
5 years ago
http://www.camro.org/
Web addy.
hannibal
5 years ago
To my way of thinking DPL these guys should be getting danger pay and anything else they need to recuperate in comfort .
More stupid beauracracy from the Lords of idiocy .
They should be getting double their pay plus bonuses .
What a dumb time to cut their pay,when they ,really, need it .
I wonder how long it will take 'em to work out a scheme to pay them ?
Truman Green
5 years ago
Bobb999, great stuff about the phony polling!
I was getting a rash of telephone polls a few months ago but they seem to have stopped.
Maybe because of the obscenity I spewed at anyone who'd ask me a stupid question, like--as you say-- "Do you think Israel has a right to exist?"
And then use such an answer to claim that Canadians support the Israelis' attack on Lebanon.
The correct answer to which is, of course: Will you shut the f... up and get off my phone?
The problem isn't really with people who are doing their jobs--it's with the lack of any apparent intelligence of anyone who'd answer such an obviously weighted question.
And there's nothing except eugenics to improve the intelligence of the population--and that's been pretty well discredited, and rightly so.
So not much will ever change. The smart, devious people will control the innocent, stupid, who are in the vast majority.
murdock
5 years ago
DPL & Hannibal:
The pay situation, indeed the entire military heirarchy & mandarins at the 'zoo on the ridoo', are roughly analagous to the situation the 'Holy Roman Empire' had cobbled together to 'manage' the military affiars.
The Aulic council was an absolute disaster, creating favor, little 'empire building' being conducted by the mandarins, etc. All of this is now being done again under the nose of Treasury Board. The nightmare now is that the 'purse-strings' have been opened and a flood of $$$ have been pouring into the military, this has created an orgy of 'pet-project' actions, exactly like the interference that the Aulic council was doing to the Austrian armies.
The 'pay' situation is only the tip of a truly nightmarish financial iceberg that we, the great unwashed, will likely never ever hear about.
hannibal
5 years ago
Yes, Murdock I agree totally with this assessment .
I believe that ,perhaps,the applicable documents can be had through access to Info.
That is if the neo's haven't totally shut it down yet .
And then there is this.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061005.DEFENCE05/TPStory
That should make you smile murdock .
I was grinning from ear to ear .
What stupidity !
IAMC
5 years ago
If you are throwing out ideas of other conflicts Canada should be involved with, and with the same warrior function, to Dar fur or wherever, Sudan, the real mission could be Ethiopia vs. Somalia.
Having many times taken shot's at each other, it's really heating up now.
Somalia, who has long been without a strong central government, has unsuccessfully been able to fight off an enemy of fundamentalist Muslims, Tali like extremists that intend on enacting sharia law, and essentially taking over the country, and making it a new Afghanistan.
Ethiopia is a majority christian country, and they are not happy.
They have already begun covert actions in Somalia. They must defeat this danger next door.
Are Christians from around the world about to mobilize en mass, and rally behind the Ethiopians?
Are Muslims going to come into Somalia in order to set up a new beach head?
The Muslims are closer.
Maybe Canada should go in with the Ethiopians.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
There is now serious speculation in the US that the Nato allies are in serious danger of, or may already have ceded effective territorial control of the south to the Taliban.
Murdock - I've been waiting for them to bring out the literally thousands of 'Stinger' missiles too.
Very bad scene. Worse prospects.
Nana
5 years ago
Maybe this topic is meant to the the third in Murray Dobbin's series, but he questions what Canada will do if the US decides to go after Iran. http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=20991
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Things must be getting 'really' bad in Afghanistan.
Rumsfeld weighs in with positive ‘indications’ and a facile historical overview in the Washington Post this morning.
You can read it here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/06/AR2006100601373.html
I wonder if he dictates this stuff while 'standing up?'
Notice the prominent use of the word quagmire.
With some members of the GOP (Frist) starting to counsel negotiation with the Taliban and the news of Rumsfeld's regular heart-to-hearts with Kissinger, does the odour of Vietnam not begin to permeate this whole region?
Next step, as Nana notes above, Iran! Or perhaps North Korea. Any bets that when the juggernaut wants to make a point from now on it does it exclusively from the air?
Truman Green
5 years ago
Since the 'trompe l'oeil' trick on 9/11 the goal has been perpetual war.
You know what I mean?...planes in the buildings. Bombs in the basement.
Osamabinladinization.
Nana
5 years ago
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/05/1430204
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Tyee's disclaimer to the contrary, some threads are still not 'working fine' - Carole Taylor for example.
Nana
5 years ago
This from http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/06/1350253
Accompanying that, we must have disarmament. We must have reparations for the -- you know, all the dollars we spent destroying Afghanistan, we must pay them back dollar-for-dollar in helping rebuild their country, so that there's a space for them to breathe, so that there's a space for them to take back their country and actually exercise democracy. The Afghan people want democracy. They say if it's good enough for you people in the West, it's good enough for us. And they really desperately want that, because they need to be freed from these twin evils of western imperialism and religious fundamentalism, and it's usually western imperialism that has actually created and fueled religious fundamentalism in Afghanistan.
Coyote
5 years ago
That the Empire coalition and puppet government is actually considering bringing the Taliban into the government, assuming they will even want to of course, is a major measure of the degree of the military failure now occurring there. Regardless of the number of "Kick butt!" comments coming from the Command of Canadian forces there, it should be clear to anyone with half a clue that after all this time since the US Empire invasion, they would not even be contemplating this did they feel confident about their strategic and tactical position, as in their ability to actually kick Taliban butt.
Clearly there is a sense of growing insecurity there on the NATO side of the equation-, being the bum-boy alliance for the Empire that it is.
Time for this country to draw some appropriate conclusions about their bootlick place in the grand US Empire scheme of things, and haul "our boys" asses out of their posthaste, before they suffer the same deadly fate of the previous Soviet Empire invasion. Bring these folks home to their families NOW, and engage them in the actual defence of their own country.
Fuk the Amerikans. Leave them to their well deserved fate.
Besides, if they majorly get their asses kicked over there, it might make them easier and less threatening to live with over here.
hannibal
5 years ago
Hope springs eternal Coyote .
They sure didn't learn much about humility by getting their asses kicked by the Viet Cong .
I see Condi Rice is saying that the US has turned a corner in Irag .
Yea, and ran smack dab into another suicide bomber .
All this modern day empire building is getting stale real fast .
All these so-called NATO countries who commite troops to the cause and then issue caveats limiting their duties is too phuquing funny .
"Yea, we'll go but we're gonna stay on the base where it's safe from the enemy"
So what is the point of going ?
This isn't some giant frat kegger you've been invited to .
We actually expect your people to get killed over here .
Nana
5 years ago
Only if you buy into the cover story is the idea of Talking to the Taliban, which it seems has been going on all along anyway, shocking.
Fariba Nawa says the Taliban are Chechens, Pakistanis and Arabs. They work out of Pakistan. The ISI recieves funding from the CIA. It sure looks like another false flag op to me which can be shut down anytime the money tap is turned off.
The other NATO countries know the whole thing is a sham and are willing to be window dressing. Canada, as usual, sacrifices actual people in support of alien empires. So what else is new!
Coyote
5 years ago
As you say:
Maybe if they get their asses kicked long AND hard enough. :-)
The NVA and Viet Cong showed The Empire some misplaced mercy in the end days of that war, holding back and allowing the US time to get away, before going into Ho Chi Minh City (then Saigon).
Hopefully, assuming our lads are out of there of course, the Taliban and the Iraqi Resistance won't be so charitable in this war against US State Terrror. Otherwise, they might just find that the ones they let get away may wind up back there again later.
The Yanks really need a hiding they can't soon forget. Something that will come back again and again to haunt their dreams and imperial war ambitions for the next 100 years.
Might even give us a chance to finally find our own independant nationhood, without having to look over our shoulders, worrying about who might be coming over the 49th.
A major anniversary celebration last night, to the point of a break down in discipine and over indulgence. It hurts to type. Gotta go lay down. :-( (I respond to being showered with sympathy. Where's that Rudd, Ruff, Ripp or Rupp woman, whatever her name is, when I really need her? :->
BC Dude
5 years ago
This is a test I lost my last blog post. damn 30min writng gone?
BC Dude
5 years ago
ok? humm thanks people!
hannibal
5 years ago
Congratulations Coyote .
On your anniversary that is not on your hang over .
Truman Green
5 years ago
Pervez Musharraf admitted (On CNN last night, even!) that the ISI have been buds with the Taliban forever, so pretty soon the Yanks are going to have to import some illegal Mexicans to Afghanistan with new uniforms and the word, "enemy" patched on, or else nobody'll be able to figure out who the bad guys are supposed to be...so they're gonna be in big trouble trying to keep the war pots simmering for the opium trade money launderers, global banking lizards and arms merchants who are really counting on these wars to finance their country estates in England and such like that, eh.
False flag city, or what! That'd be a good name for Kabul.
thomas49
5 years ago
The only reason Canada has become so subservient to the WANTS of the AMERIKANS...MONEY.
War means money to those who indulge in the deadly game without ever risking their lives...LIKE PRIME MINISTER HARPER and the businessmen/industrial military complex(remember it was a president that coined that phrase and warned us how dangerous the IMC really is).
We are all disposable to those who rule.
hannibal
5 years ago
Too true . And a sad,sad statement .
Harpos and his gang of Barnum & Bailey sycophants(all clowns) will be tossed out in the earlt spring . Guaranteed .
Gilles Duceppe has finally awoken to the fact that this government(?) is the most hated in the history of our great nation .
Chantel Hebert
Gerhardius
5 years ago
Yet more evidence we've been had!
This is one of those interesting snippets that is intriguing enough to trigger some research. I contacted 4 friends who speak Arabic from three different countries: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Algeria. One of them has heard the reference to a toilet when he was in Syria or Lebanon, he wasn't sure, but the others found it kind of funny. Apparently Asimov's Foundation Series title in Arabic is Al-Qaida as well, maybe the whole thing is a scam by the good people at Random House. It is entirely possible that a word can have diverse meanings for speakers of the language. I speak Italian, Florentine, and there are some perfectly innocent words that you can say in other regions of Italy that have a different meaning in Florentine slang. Given that Arabic is spoken across a swath of Asia and Africa I imagine there may be other meanings of Al-Qaeda.
The President of the Great Satan is the so-called Head of State the Criminal George Bush. Did you know that the word "head" is also used in some militarist circles to mean toilet? Further proof that the Military Industrial Complex has no respect for their so call "Head" of State when they use the say word for a toilet: do they think we are fools?!?
BC Dude
5 years ago
http://coat.openconcept.ca/cpp/
This really makes me sick that these no less than human are destroying Our Free Country Canada!
Remember the Words "I Am CANADIAN"
And Harper with all the major cuts he's made to the social network of this Great Country That Once Stood for Peacekeepers of the World! I'm a Hundred Percent behind Our Troops but the Story I'm hearing/Unfolding of this Immoral Decadent Invasion of a poor Nation.
Just for the War Profiteers Illegal War I Say Bring Back Our Troops As this is The Biggest Decision of Our Lives And Our Children's and Quite Possibly Our Grandchildren!
We Are Canadians and We Should Be on the Streets Demanding Our Democratic Rights As A Free People/Country we should start gathering on the street corners and slowly will see more and more people and then more a tidal wave of people who are fed up with this travesty of humanity we should be in Darfur, Sudan etc 2.? Billions could have gone a long way developing to rebuild Afghanistan!
As as you can see I'm a very passionate Canadian who was brought up to obey the law and always show Respect.
BC Dude
5 years ago
And don't forget the B.C. Liberals and canceling the "Fall Legislature Sitting" If we/opposition don't get to Question WHY so many unanswered questions about B.C. rail, B.C. B.C. Ferries, Terasan Our the People's Legislature Buildings Raids (with federal Liberals involved) in 2003 Victoria B.C. Were Being Used by Organized Crime and Gordon Campbell Is Still in Power? Democracy I Don't See Anything like That Displayed by This Contemptuous Government with all of its Corporate Bums bleeding the working poor!
BC Dude
5 years ago
This was a Great Man!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY
murdock
5 years ago
hannibal:
So long as it is not a 'base' captured by US troops using A-10 warthogs firing depleted uranium rounds...
I note that Canada is the only nation to occupy such a post.
I sure hope they all kept thier dosage meters up to date.
Coyote
5 years ago
Okay, I'm recovered some.
:-) I know we in the navy always called the toilet, "the head". That was elementary sailor lingo, like port and starboard, forward and aft.
Likewise do British Royal Marines. Bar crawled enough with them in Hong Kong and other such seedy ports of call, as to know that.
AND BC Dude, when you lose your writing like that, just hit your back button-, which returns you to your previous pages. Voila! There's your post again.
Few things worse than slaving over a piece, only to have it disappear into the ether.
And while I'm rambling incoherently, Ignatieff, in my read of what is going on here, represents the attempt to create two Conservative parties, as a means of putting a neocon lock on Canadian politics and the possibilities of changing that reality. If you are pissed off with one of these Conservative Parties, it is presumed that you can then only vote for another Conservative one in protest. (Though the second one may continue to call itself Liberal, like the (Neocon) Liberal Party of BC.)
To which one may reply that there are the NDP, and for an even bigger stretch, the Greens. The NDP being, of course, given the "false store-front" character of current Canadian politics, probably the real "liberal" party of the country, in any case. But by now already, not taken serious by most Canadians, I think, and much having discredited itself as The Party of Wimps, likewise to nearly everyone. (Which is regrettable. I'm not cheering it. Because it would be nice to have real choices available to people, rather than all this current non-descript "mushiness" and blurred demarcation lines outlining parties.)
Ditto, just about for the Greens. The Liberals, at least around Ignatieff, want to be conservatives, and the NDP really want to be Liberals, while the Greens, I think, in their main outline, while likewise showing some old "progressive conservative" tendencies, really wannabe social-democrats.
I know, confusing isn't it?
All reflecting the widespread uncertainty, wavering and divided loyalties, and the country wide lack of confidence, absence of resolve and public engagement in the nation. It's there at the top and widespread amongst "the masses" as well right now.
We're waiting and hoping a fairy Godmother will appear, wave her wand and everything will magically be made right again.
This country has always had a certain naive dysfunctionality running through it, even though it was, until the recent past, more attractively gentle and compassionate. This period is getting to be more than a tad excessive though. And the Harper Conservatives have been the final kicker. (Though the Libs and Dems have been taking us there, only at a slower pace for awhile too-, beginning in the late 70s, when the new Neocon period began its rise here, starting in BC and Alberta, and spreading to Ontario, then the rest of the country.)
Time to bring "our boys" home, right now, and get on with finally fully securing control over our own country-,its political and cultural institutions, its underpinning resource base and our entire national economy.
This is bullshitt.
lynn
5 years ago
In regard to Nana's comment above about the ISI, there is an interesting article in a Guardian article from 2004 that writes of the linkages between the ISI, the CIA, and 9/11 called "The Pakistan Connection". The article states that "it was rumoured murdered journalist Daniel Pearl was especially interested in any role played by the US in training or backing the ISI":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1266317,00.html
Working Man
5 years ago
Coyote, there is a difference between dogmatism and pragmatism. I am not dogmatic. I rail against dogmatism. I find off the shelf rhetoric pathetically boring and useless. Any person or political party that is dogmatic I am against.
I am a pragmatist. The war serves no practical use other that pleasing the Americans. We have no need to please the Americans. They need our rescources and skilled labour. Our economy will not suffer, and did not suffer, when Chetien was PM and we did not kiss American butt.
When your dogma runs over your karma, you have a serious problem.
biscotti
5 years ago
Lynn, for more chilling accounts of ISI and other linkages, check out the book "Who Killed Daniel Pearl?" by Bernard Henri Levy. I don't recommend reading it at bedtime, though :-o
Coyote
5 years ago
Not having a "dogma" per se that I follow, I'd have to say you are right, probably.
On the other hand, everyone has a more or less systematized or structured view of the world, with some more concious of that and possibly better able to articulate it, and others either conciously hiding or simply naively unware of their own personal "ideology", one might call it. Such as yourself here. It may not be a "formal" ideology ascribed to any particular person, but an ideology or view of the world it is nonetheless.
"Dogma", on the other hand, enters into it I think, when it is a fixed, non-evolving, view of the world, more or less "religiously" held to, like articles of faith. One is dogmatic when one's view of the world or ideology is no longer capable of being swayed by real material evidence, changing conditions or logic. And many people go about this world, more than just the obvious ones, in my experience, often even decrying the "dogmatism" of others, who are themselves "dogmatic".
Karma on the other hand, to me, is a more ephemeral thing. I'm not even sure that I know what it is, or that it is really anything at all, other than whether people see you positively or not, hence good and bad karma.
About dogma and being "dogmatic" though, I can readily agree with you. But then it is almost always "the other fellow" who is dogmatic of course. It is seldom that one sees it in themself. :-) My experience.
And I don't let myself off the hook of that observation. For it is definitely possible for anyone, ascribing to either a formal or personal ideology, to be dogmatic, as I allude, and not know it. Though one may think that one should have a clue.
Hopefully neither of us is afterall "dogmatic". :-)
Coyote
5 years ago
Anyway, for those folks who think that all the "conspiracy theorists" who don't dutifully buy into the "official" explanation for 9/11 are wackos, a read of the article posted by Lynn just might give you pause for at least some doubt. Unless, of course, one dogmatically holds to things even in the facing of significant evidence.
Thanks Lynn.
While I'm not convinced I know definitively yet exactly what transpired, as this article helps underscore, everything is almost positively as it appears or is officially explained.
There's a great weirdness out there, set loose in the world by this Project for A New Amerikan Century crowd around Bush and the Neocons. They are capable of anything with their globalized Manifest Destiny scheming
Coyote
5 years ago
Should read "...positively not as it appears..." of course.
Frank
5 years ago
If no western forces help the Afghan people then aren't we saying its okay for the Taliban to execute as many of them as they like?
When the Taliban take over again won't the result look like another Rwanda?
Canada didn't intervene in that country either, were the Rwandans better off for it? I don't think so.
We didn't intervene in Spain in the late 30's, I don't think the Spanish people were better off. We did intervene in South Korea and the World Wars and I think the result was a good one.
As I said in my last post, the problem is we can't win, not that we shouldn't be there.
Perhaps we should give every Afghan who wants it, Cdn citizenship, and our little army can hold the airport till every kid in Kabul that doesn't want a bullet in the back of her head gets on a plane for Toronto.
jimtan
5 years ago
Frank,
You are wrong. Afghanistan is not Rawanda. In Rawanda, the massacre happened because of an inter-tribal conflict of many generations.
You should find out more about conservative Muslims (Taliban) vs. revolutionary Muslims (Al Qaeda) vs. dictators (Saddam) vs. neocons (Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield/Blair?Harper).
hannibal
5 years ago
" I am Canadian and I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore "
Joe Canadian and Howard Beal from 'Network'
Frank
5 years ago
jimtan, the massacre that happened in Rwanda could have been prevented. Therefore it doesn't matter why it happened, what matters is why it was allowed to happen.
Many of the Afghan people don't seem to be in love with the return of the Taliban. My question is, if we're unwilling to protect them, shouldn't we rescue them?
Coyote
5 years ago
Around which you and I will have to simply disagree, Frank.
I am of the view that we, special enlightened one's of all knowledge, culture, civilization and, of course, last but not least, overwhelming military power and nukes, have to be compelled to back away and preoccupy ourselves with our own internal problems and affairs, and stop interferring with our notions of right and wrong, and always our own economic and power interests, in the affairs of other states. When the day is at hand that there is perhaps a truly democratic and equal United Nations, not ruled by the Big Power interests, other options may present themselves. Indeed, I expect that one distant day we may actually get there. But we are not clearly there yet, by a long shot.
I think a case could probably be made that when another country does invade another, that all hands should be turned against that invading power, whomever-, such as was the case with Germany and then fascism. The problem even with that is, there are still those, like the US Empire today, behaving like an international bully no less than Germany, that is untouchable and can do fair as it pleases. Until it finally falls of its own shortcomings and failings, justice is not meted out to it and its leaders. (For no one proposes to invade it, to make it behave like a good and civilized citizen, whatever it does. They are not small, poor or weak enough.)
We still lack the means for equal justice "on a global scale". That's a reality. It's still Big Power justice meted out to the poorer and weaker states. And the history of their imperialism and colonialism has left a legacy in Africa, the Middle East and Asia which has had the effect of arresting time and their all round development. (Our own Natives know something about that.) In many parts of the world, like Rawanda and other struggling states in Africa, they are still basically emerging from tribalism, with those same ancient tribal rivalries while trying still to carve out modern nation states. They need to fight them out and resolve those conflicts for themselves, and create the winners and loser who will complete this task, the same as Europe and we ourselves did in the brutal suppression and near extirpation of our Native populations, as were done in our European conquest of this part of the world.
We may not like it. It may makes us cringe. But we are not yet the Gods to set ourselves up to judge the affairs and internal conflicts of others, or the manner in which they duke it out, in this case struggling people's and nations. The best thing we can do is stay the fuk out of their affairs, even though there will always be those on the losing side who may plead with us to help them. All those swollen bodies, and women and children, of course, which are ever there in every conflict, even the ones we initiate and fight.Check out Iraq and Afghanistan.
continued next post...
Coyote
5 years ago
from previous post...
They really need, I think, to fight those brutal conflicts, like the US Civil War and the English Civil War, because if they don't, nothing will ever be resolved, in part because we are always intervening and imposing our solutions from the sidelines. There will have to be
those who lose, and such successful compromises as can be secured by themselves out of a bad and losing situation.
Besides, our military ventures into the Middle East, Africa and Asia, behind the facade of the White Man's Burden to civilize the savages of the world, always have their own hidden agendas in who WE want to see win and lose, and why, and the outcomes WE think they should have.
We scarcely stand before history with bloodless hands and pure hearts ourselves, fer chrisake.
I think what has to be secured, short of a radically altered UN arrangement between "equal" nations, is establishment of the principle of non-interference by all countries in the internal affairs of all other nations and societies. The world is full, there is no place to run to anymore, people need to engage themselves in ways that resolve the issues of population, democracy and economic sustainability within their own societies.
I am absolutely opposed to this country, no less than the US Empire, or any other country, wrapping itself in the robes of a higher, purer, more civilized authority, picking up that White Man's Burden you offer us Frank. It is a bullshitt burden, in my view, that we need to set down and go about our own affairs, ordering our own house. (Which doesn't mean that we should or can't say what we think in global relations, or decide who we do and do not trade with, under what conditions, and whom we provide aid and under what conditions. There is more than one way to skin a cat.) Imperialism and its militarism, wrapped up in the robes of a new White Man's Burden role for ourselves has never worked well. You think you have suppressed the situation, but as soon as you leave, it flares up again. It is part of the Never Ending War vision of the world, and for that reason alone needs to be moved away from. (You, as an individual, want to go somewhere and fight for one side or another, then go on your own hook. We as a nation should not. We are far from enlightened enough ourselves.)
My view. Sorry for the length.
Frank
5 years ago
If you're right Coyote, then it means of course there won't be any more peacekeeping operations, no more CIDA or Oxfam or World Vision, no more fighting against the next Hitler etc. It means sitting inside our own borders.
That would certainly be cheaper for us and we very well might be better off.
However, as you said in your quote, I won't like it. It'll bother me to watch the next genocide on tv and be told we'll trade with the winner and let's not worry about the fate of the loser.
Truman Green
5 years ago
lynn, did you read what Richard Clarke had to say about the passenger lists at the end of the Guardian article?
Read it again then google: "no names of hijackers on passenger lists, 911."
Then read Clarke's nearly tearful apology to the American people.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
I'd actually be interested to find out exactly what the FBI has been doing in Canada of late. One wonders if pee wee's current spate of critical comments about the Arar case will actually lead to any 'real' investigation or is nothing more than, as you put it trompe l'oeil.
alive
5 years ago
Perhaps enough time has passed that we can objectively assess that Hitler thing?
Suppose that there had been no interference from the allies, making things extra difficult in Germany, then perhaps Hitler would not have had thousands of starving people to entice?
He did not gain momentum because the German people as such wanted to kill jews or fight Poland!
They were "sold" on the fact that he seemed to have a solution to mass unemployement!
Can we take the parrallel here?
Suppose we help those poppy growers for example instead of shooting them, then perhaps they would not be interested in having any kind of war either?
How to do that would mean stopping the greedy multinational corporations from constantly looking overseas for new areas to plunder!
yeah, Haliburton for one!
Coyote
5 years ago
That would certainly be cheaper for us and we very well might be better off.
First, even many of our peacekeeping functions, even in the Baltics, had more to do with a US interest in controlling the situation along the borders of the former Soviet UNion than it did with attempting to right some kind of genocidal civil war in the former Yogoslavia going on. There was precious little "high morality" involved.
Even Rawanda, where there wasn't a sufficient Western or US "material" interest to justify an intervention in this former French colony, was really a post colonialism civil war going on between two rival tribal fractions. (The Hutu majority taking revenge against the Tutsi minority,for the latter's long history of having served as overlords for the French, much as the majority Shia are now doing to the minority Sunni in Iraq, for a similar history under Sadaam, in league with the Amerikans. Only in Iraq, the motivation to intervene was sufficient because of oil.)
Europe and indeed, much of the world, have their histories of genocide. Even the genocide carried out against our own Natives-, down to a remnant population level from which they are only now beginning to recover. So genocides and near genocides have long been a part of the history of the world. They were far from a new phenomena even at the time of Hitler. Germany was attacked for its invasions of Poland and Czechoslovakia, and because England and later Amerika feared it as a rival power, not for what Hitler was doing to the Jews. Remember?
Indeed, Hitler was long admired in many ruling circles in the West, including England and the US.
fURTHER, even after the war and the full knowledge of the Holocaust was known. we dId everything possoble to avoid accepting its victims. Former Nazis in fact had a better chance of getting into the country AND did. We fobbed the Jews off onto the entirely innocent and bewildered Palestinians, then ruled by the British Imperial power.
There is no evidence that we, the predominantly White Powers of the West are ourselves fit to decide upon the matters of the rest of the worlds history and "internal" events. (Note I said "internal".) One country invading another on any pretext should be viewed quite separately for its threat implications to all-, as in the case of the anti-fascist war.
You have not offered me a convincing argument yet, for us participating in Big Power interventions into the internal affairs of other countries on any pretext.
And as a policy, non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, as you say, is a whole bunch cheaper in our precious blood and material treasure. Additionally, it ends the main cover for theft and material self-interest intervention by Imperial minded powers, against smaller, poorer and more defenceless ones.
I mean, the Russians right now are basically carrying out a policy of extirpation of the Chechens, and no one is even contemplating a humanitarian or peacekeeping intervention there. We're all just ignoring it. Right?
Hypocrisy Rules everywhere. The White Man's Burden policy no less. Nay, more.
Coyote
5 years ago
And what private or public, for that matter, charitable organizations do to alleviate famine suffereing etc. is quite anoither matter. You are feigning ingenuousness here, my friend, and you have to know it. :-)
Frank
5 years ago
Not at all. My question runs much deeper than that. To use a Christian phrase, what I'm asking is, are we our brother's keeper? Ever?
What do we owe to the other people that live on this planet outside our own borders? Just extra sacks of wheat?
On Hitler, it doesn't matter how or why he rose and eventially invaded Poland. My question is why we felt the attack on Poland had anything to do with us?
Or for that matter why we (well, not me, but the country did) felt defending Kuwait against Iraq was necessary or why we sent troops to defend South Korea yet didn't help the Sandanistas against the US contras? Or for that matter the Chileans against Pinochet or the Spanish against Franco or the Guatamalans against the USA?
And yes we have a bad history of not accepting refugees such as European Jewry but that shouldn't be the argument for now not accepting Afghans we don't want to protect in their own country.
Same with Rwanda, it doesn't matter that it was one tribe wiping out another, that will happen in artificial African states, but what matters is why we cared far far more about the Poles of 1939 than we did the Tutsi?
Afghanistan has similar ethnic divisions. The support for the Taliban is pretty much confined to one ethnic group and even within that group it may not even be a majority. So I'm not saying Canada knows what's best and we should impose our will on Afghanistan. I'm saying the Afghans want our help, why don't we do what they want us to do? If we cared about the Afghans as much as we did the Poles of 1939 wouldn't we raise an army of over a half million and actually help them?
Or are we there to only give the Afghans a false sense of security so they can pick a side and then get executed for it when we leave?
I realize Canada isn't strong enough to help everyone everywhere but does that mean we should never help anyone? Why have a foreign aid program at all if everyone needs to sort out their own problems? Isn't peacekeeping helping? Or is the attraction to peacekeeping the fact that it won't cost as much as actually defending people who are asking for our help from a group of religous fanatics with lots of guns?
jimtan
5 years ago
Frank,
The allies fought the Nazis not to save the Jews, but as a continuation of the power struggle of WW1. Indeed, the aftermath of WW1 led to the rise of the Nazis. And, he aftermath of WW2 led to the rise of the Soviets.
We mustn’t forget the civilian deaths inflicted by the Allies in the carpet/fire/nuclear bombing of cities.
In the era of the United Nations, there should be intervention to avoid massacres and naked aggression. Korea was a police action that escalated into a war with China because of MacArthur’s fanaticism. Saddam should and was kicked out of Kuwait. However, western countries (and Russia) must bear responsibility for arming and encouraging Saddam.
Peace keeping can only succeed when intervention occurs early in the crisis. NATO should have intervened in Bosnia in 1992, not 1995. By 1995, ethnic cleansing was complete and cannot be undone.
The UN should have intervened in Iraq in 1991 to save the Shiites. But, the Americans were unwilling because of geopolitical considerations. Peace keeping is effective only when the major powers have clean hands and are in accord; and potential belligerents know the rules.
Today, we have witnessed the failure of American peace making in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq is a demonstration of the incompetence and arrogance of the neo-cons. They had long term intentions for Iraq but invested too little. They had no long-term intentions for Afghanistan and hardly invested anything.
In Afghanistan, it is not possible for NATO to win because peace making has been compromised by the American effort. Only Britain and Canada are making an effort in the south. Germany, France and Italy have refused to take part in peace making in the Taliban’s homeland.
We don’t have to abandon the country. We could withdraw to Kabul and the provinces that are not in rebellion. We should pursue the origin strategy. Concentrate our resources to build up these areas in a true long-term effort that respects the cultural integrity of the local people; whilst keeping the lid on corruption.
In the long run, our areas would prosper while the Taliban’s homeland would stagnant in poverty and oppression. This is the choice we can offer the Afghanis. Our role would be defensive with an emphasis on reconstruction.
At this time, the Taliban are not almighty in their homeland. The British and Taliban have negotiated a cease-fire in Musa Qala.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/02/wtroops02.xml
There are two important conclusions. Firstly, the cease-fire is not a draw. It is a defeat for NATO. Lightly armed peasants have defeated paratroopers of a modern army. They are not even armed with SAM or RPG-29s.
Secondly, the rebels have bowed to the wishes of the local tribal leadership. The Taliban are not strong enough to override the locals. The Taliban do not yet have an army. However, the Taliban will get stronger as the fighting goes on.
Peace weakens the Taliban. They must not be allowed to build an army. Power comes out of the barrel of a gun.
In South Vietnam, many factions opposed the Saigon government. However, the communists dominated the armed insurgency (Vietcong). And, it was the NVA that captured Saigon. So, South Vietnam became a communist state despite the Buddhist tradition of the Vietnamese.
Therefore, the Taliban must not be allowed to build the military assets that would allow them to impose their rule on the local peoples. Peace making is a crazy doctrine that drives the locals into the arms of the Taliban.
Working Man
5 years ago
Interesting how the Tyee censored the comments section of Will McMartin's highly biased piece on Carole Taylor. It was clear that the Tyee was not getting the comments it wanted so it shut them down.
As WAC Bennett said:
."
hannibal
5 years ago
More stupidity from herr Harpo .
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/harper_stephen/foreignpolicyspeech.html
Coyote
5 years ago
Alive,
I'm hearing ya, brother. And you are right is the simple matter of it.
It was the compensation costs imposed on German at the end of WWI, to be paid to the then "Allies", combined with a major world wide economic depression throughout capitalism everywhere, which created the special conditions in Germany that led to the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. And the popularity of Eugenics throughout much of academic and ruling class capitalism at the time, was certainly not unique to the Germans.
There is more to history and its unfolding events and genocides than is generally conceded or even acknowledged by the slogans and propaganda of "The Victors" especially.
Much is a play to the naivete and lack of understanding of the masses, and their "wanting to believe" in their leaders and fight the good cause, especially if it gives you even a deadly job during a long and languishing economic depression. And a clean suit and boots, with badges and buttons, and ooooo, guns. In which culture especially young working class boys were/are steeped, from tender young ages-, with GI Joe dolls and dragons, polished boots and pressed khakis or blues in cadets, when you are a teen, nearly a man, maybe even "reserves" when you are in high school.
There's a ongoing rhythmic flow to it. This young man's life, and now some women. And it's not all bad. Societies objectively do need their warriors. It's just that they're then this twin edged sword, especially depending on which way the young sapling is bent, who or whose view of the world controls it, and his/her experience and understanding of the world.
You are right. Many complex strands tend to run parallel and yet integrated in real, not propaganda history.
Nana
5 years ago
Frank
You're falling for the hook. The people who run us use the humanitarian angle to get us slobs to invest out children in their wars to either protect or increase their profit.
That's all there is...everything else is window dressing.
The war solution to humanitarian problems is no solution, it is a creator of more problems. We know the the effects of PTSD can be lifelong. It probably takes three generations to get over the psychological effects of a war.
It isn't the "we" prefer Poles over Afghanis, it's where our masters send us....we've got to stop going.
I
Frank
5 years ago
The Allies did not cause Hitler. Germany lost the war and if they didn't like the terms of Versailles they didn't have to sign, they could have kept fighting until they got a better result.
This is an argument similar to the one popular in right-wing German circles, that their army was undefeated and the Allies tricked them.
And regardless, the Germans got off easy, they never did live up to the obligations of Versailles.
Frank
5 years ago
jimtan,
In the long run, our areas would prosper while the Taliban’s homeland would stagnant in poverty and oppression. This is the choice we can offer the Afghanis. Our role would be defensive with an emphasis on reconstruction.
I would support that. There's no reason to take the offensive into areas where the Taliban are strong. Make them come to us. And in the meantime we could offer the Afghan people a better society than what the Taliban are offering. The Taliban have already proved they're not good at governing.
Frank
5 years ago
Nana, so we shouldn't intervene in Darfur either? Nor in any other situation?
Frank
5 years ago
Working Man, regarding McMartin's article, what exactly did you disagree with? That it wasn't full of quotes from a family that engages in insider trading to make their living?
Coyote
5 years ago
There were two strands there, I think. First, because we were then still a perceived real part of the British Empire. We were a dominion of the Britsh Empire, and that sentimentality was really quite strong.
Second, for others, there was a loyalty to the cause of Communism, whish some called "socialism", and the need to defend the motherland of The Revolution. Left and Right then were both pulling in the same direction, which is not totally unusual, and that was toward the Second Great conflagration in Europe.
Other than that, being a part of the then emerging capitalist mainstream, and out of a sence of loyalty to "The Empire", the reality is there was no separate, distinct, or uniquely Canadian interest to engaging in even WW2. (As we should at least by now know, post the collapse of the USSR.)
Though it is hard to let go of that sentimentality. Which is another issue.
Much of the same shitt is still at work in the country, behind our slavish serving of the current reigning Empire. We have not yet, even after two world wars, come to our national adulthood-, our separate, individual and entirely sovereign "nationhood". How e'er yet much part of a larger peaceful, non-interfering global community.(Which still does not preclude simple charity.)
And I'm running on, so I'm finished for the day. Said too much already. I'm gonna make our Winter Solstice cake today. I have all the ingrediants assembled.
That season is fast approaching too, you know. :-) LOL
Coyote
5 years ago
Frank,
Am I wrong? Or is that the latest NDP party line I'm hearing out of you. :-)
Good luck. :-)
I won't even go there.
macsasquatch
5 years ago
Here's what we do.
Instead of keeping our soldiers there, we pull them out and send in a few Canadian Wheat Board types to set up the Afghan Poppy Board.
Then we supply the $900,000,000 per annum (or so...okay,let's make it a billion per annum, because some farmers might get into it when it's quasi legal.) directly to the Afghan farmers for their poppy crops. Then we ship the harvest back over here for either destruction...or, um research.
(Imagine, if we don't destroy it right away what a bargaining chip it gives us in international arenas.)
So, no more foreign soldiers and aircraft damaging hearts and minds in Afghanistan, just business contacts. Warlords and drug lords are undercut. Farmers and their communities quickly build a vested interest in maintaining a stable, legal, secure future for themselves and their families.
And it'll cost us only a bullion a years, for say...five years.
And that five years will give us a reasonable time and a secure environment in which to encourage an alternative to poppy production.
Who knows, with climate change, food production could become a very profitable enterprise in the very near future.
Working Man
5 years ago
I disagree with the Tyee censoring comments that do not fit their agenda.
Nana
5 years ago
Lest we forget how this particular episode started.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060910&articleId=3198
Frank
5 years ago
Some on the left, especially G West were upset that the topic had closed too but it seems that it was simply due to a glitch caused when changing servers.
Frank
5 years ago
Nana, 911 is not when it started. That's only when it started for Canada. The Taliban were already in power due to the help of the West against the previous Russian-backed government and then because we didn't care if the Afghans were ruled by tyrants.
Frank
5 years ago
I wish :-)
Nana
5 years ago
Frank
I said how this episodei.e. this part of the ongoing saga of the attempted conquest of Afghanistan started. Britain attempted it.....remember the Charge of the Light Brigade?but only because of the rivalry with Russia,
The Great Game continued as Z.Brzezinski under Carter poured money into the Mujahadine. Afghanistan's misfortune is geographical
lynn
5 years ago
thanks, biscotti ( and for the warning) ;-)...will look for it next time at the library.
Frank
5 years ago
Nana, the Charge of the Light Brigade took place in the Crimea. Britain and Russia were at odds for much of that era. A Russian fleet even visited the US during the time of the Civil War to let Britain know that Russia wouldn't stand by if Britain helped the Confederates.
Anyway, it also has nothing to do with Afghanistan. The problem is that there are a group of people asking for security from a bunch of thugs and we're already there.
If we actually care about helping people then we should do it, at least once, rather than letting the place slide back into the middle ages.
Or, lets let the Taliban back in but stop saying we care about anything in the world outside our own borders, that we watch the news from other countries only because it makes us happier to be where we are.
Frank
5 years ago
Also, we aren't conquering Afghanistan. if the Afghans don't want us there we should leave. if they do, we should stay.
4Cryinoutloud
5 years ago
[B]Mikev
You are not the only one that believes that a war into Afghanistan was the wrong thing for anyone to do in the first place and then Canada joining in was most preposterous.
Had the attacks on 9/11 been in Canada I will guarantee you that first the USA would not have come to our "rescue", the UN would never have supported our request for an invasion and NATO/USA would have found better things to do.
That Canada has participated in this war is strickly political and because we are politically run by corporate USA/Canada this is a fascist war and you, me and our military can kiss the Fraser Institute's, PNAC, AEI and the CCCE's collective butts.
Nana
5 years ago
Frank
You're right, I got the Valley of Death mixed up with something else. Leaving that aside, the fact remains the British decided Afghanistan was strategic to their interests not only because of India, but because of the rivalry that led to the Crimean War.
Yes, but under the direction of another group of thugs....the Americans are still running the show. Until they are gone, nothing to the benefit of the Afghanis will happen.
They just opened a Coke bottling plant and heralded it as an astounding proof of the advances that have been made.
Frank
5 years ago
Nana, then perhaps we should raise another 50,000 troops and take over completely from the Americans, British, Germans etc
Because right now our 5,000 troops fulfill no purpose except delay the inevitable which is executions of everyone who opposed the Taliban or educated women or whatever.
So we either pull out and say we're not strong enough to help anyone else on this planet so we're just going to tend to our own house or we actually help them.
But we can't say we're a nation that loves everyone else if we only deal with the winners and ignore the suffering of the losers.
Nana
5 years ago
Frank
The most helpful thing to do right now is to withdraw. The game is rigged. The ISI funds the Taliban, who are Chechens, Arabs and Pakistanis who fight for pay and the CIA funds the ISI.
You are fighting a United States proxy in support of US policies in a war that is not meant to be won.
Frank
5 years ago
Nana, regardles of whether the war is the USA versus Pakistan, the result on the ground will be executions of decent Afghan people. So if we're not willing to help them we should be willing to offer Cdn citizenship to them and bring them here.
lynn
5 years ago
Truman, yes, I noticed that, too. ( Clarke's recognition of al-Quaida names on the passenger lists that later disappear. Definitely makes you think what's wrong with this picture...nothing adds up on those lists (literally!)...and no official explanation offered. Also googled as you asked, very interesting (thanks)... the articles in those links.... on the low numbers of passengers on each plane...low enough that the total number could fit in one plane.
Frank
5 years ago
And by the way, next time we see something on tv we don't like, like Darfur we should ignore it since we haven't been willing to actually help anyone, beyond a token show of the flag, since WW2.
thomas49
5 years ago
They just opened a Coke bottling plant and heralded it as an astounding proof of the advances that have been made.
That is a great advance,for dentists
and for the AMERIKANS...cause now those perfect teeth and good health can deteriorate from the sugar/chemicals(geeze they stop growing poppies so we can send them our drugs of choice,wow)
Maybe someone should stop the UNITED MISTAKES from dealing in their dangerous drugs...crappa cola comes to mind and the AMERIKAN DREAM is a real drug problem i can see us exporting.
GEEZ FERGOT,already exporting that dream ,the turkey and cranberries on the table just reminded me of the lies we live here at home and one of our soldiers is going to have a dinner over there and it is going to be his last.
Because it's all lies and as long as someone else pays for it the politicians will keep on killing our protectors.
NOW THAT IS THE AMERIKAN DREAM...THE DRUG OF BILLIONS
gimmee,gimmmee,gimmmmmeeeeee
Truman Green
5 years ago
Frank it's just Cowboys and Indians for cash.
The humanitarian slant is just part of the marketing.
Nana
5 years ago
Frank
We're patsies. We can have no effect on the outcome. What do you want...a whole lot of martyrs to the War On Terror?
Frank
5 years ago
But Truman, every war, civil war, insurrection etc can be seen as power politics. Since we never intervene anywhere what really is the point of us ever watching the news?
Let's say the USA invades Venezuela tomorrow. Will we sit back and say too bad so sad but we're not willing to stand up for Venezuelans either?
My point is that since we have found a reason not to do anything in every tussle since 1945 (Korea was a very small contingent) do we really have any values worth fighting for at all?
impudent lowlife
5 years ago
What concerns me about Canada's "agressive" role in Afghanistan is that it has, as laid out in the above article, become complicit in violations of international humanitarian law. Another concern is that Canada's role in this "counter-insurgency" operation can only logically end when the Taliban, or any other "insurgents" have been completely eliminated. Wow. Mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator can definately be interpreted as genocide. I don't want my hands splattered with that blood.
Frank
5 years ago
The Taliban have a human-rights record that would make Ghengis Khan blush. We don't have to kill every last one of them, we simply have to break them as a force that's trying to rule the country through armed might rather than at the ballot box. If the Taliban tomorrow decided to forego armed struggle and the killing of anyone who disagrees with them and instead stood for election to the Afghan parliament there wouldn't be any need for soldiers.
Frank
5 years ago
Nana,
Yes we can but it'll entail a much higher cost than sending surplus wheat and some CIDA targets.
I want us to stop being the country that thinks recognizing and trading with the bully and not assisting the victim means we retain a moral high ground.
Frank
5 years ago
Anyway, I'm out of here in 10 minutes. As I said on another thread, unlike Harper, I have an actual plan for Thanksgiving Dinner, not simply an "approach" that would mean my kids would have eaten a last minute meal at McDonalds.
Nana
5 years ago
That's right Frank, but since they are still being supported by US funding, no matter how indirect, that will not happen, especially since none of them would be able to vote in an Afghan election since they are mostly foreigners.
Nana
5 years ago
The above was written in response to Franks remarking on the Taliban's human rights record and the fact they won't participate in elections.
Below is in introduction to an article on Pagegate listed on whatreallyhappened.com which reinforces my understanding that the main problem is with a totally corrupted US government. We cannot fight what is inextricably intertwined with the war in Afghanistan, especially when it is still the US military calling the shots.
It is reported that Jack Abramoff operated a "sex ring" out of several DC hotels, providing male and female prostitutes, some underage, to leading politicians. Overtly a part of his lobbying activity, reports are that these politicians were later subject to blackmail with photos/videos of their trysts, and that THIS may have been the real secret of Abramoff's success.
Now add to this blackmail system the links between Abramoff and the Bush War Machine via Abramoff's secretary in Karl Rove's Office, and Abramoff's links to 9-11, via Mohamed Atta as regular guest on Abramoff's casino ship, and Abramoff start to emerge as the center player in a plot to trick the US into war in the Mideast and to prevent Congress from doing anything about it.
impudent lowlife
5 years ago
That would be part of a more logical platform on Afghanistan - inclusion rather than extermination but after 5 odd years of one-sided bloodshed I would expect that there are no "moderate" Taliban left to deal with. So then one is left with extermination or "counter-insurgency" as policy.
Truman Green
5 years ago
I think MK Bhadrakumar, writing in the Asia Times, pretty well tells the whole story in his essay, 'Afghanistan: Why Nato Cannot Win.'
From the article:
"For one thing, the Taliban enjoy grassroots support within Afghanistan. There is no denying this ground reality.
Second, the Taliban are becoming synonymous with Afghan resistance. The mindless violations of the Afghan code of honour by the coalition forces during their search and destroy missions and the excessive use of force during military ooperations leading to loss of innocent lives has provoked widespread revulsion among Afghan people."
Frank, the biggest lie coming out of Afghanistan today is that everyone who joins the resistance is somehow a 'Taliban.'
As long as this nonsense is believed in the Nato countries we've just got another Viet Nam on our hands.
And the militarists have got exactly what they wanted all along: An extended war that will never be won.
If the Soviets couldn't beat down the resistance why would you imagine that NATO can?
But Frank, you've really got to get your head around this: "The Taliban enjoy grassroots support within Afghanistan," which is key to you understanding what is really going on.
Because if they didn't have local support, an RCMP contingent could have defeated them by now. Okay, I exaggerate, but not by much.
The amazing thing is that the Yanks have just brushed off that same old crap they told about the Viet Cong, and I bet even to their amazement, it still works.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Yes, Nana.
Read it and weep everybody: Abramoff, Sex Ring, Blackmail, 9/11 Plame Leak, AIPAC link to Israeli Intelligence. It's all coming out... But then what?
Nana
5 years ago
I don't know Truman, nothing may happen. That there are candidates in the US running on an anti-war platform gives me hope.
Coyote
5 years ago
And Truman is right I think, Frank, him and Nana on this one. You nor I could haul ass out there Frank and just start an effective insurgency off the top of our heads, that's kicking US and NATO ass like over there. Why? Why?
I find it difficult to believe you go as far back as Vietnam, Frank. You must be a lot younger than I, or being as progressive as you seem, you would not be fooled by this bullshitt, kiss US ass line again.
Disgusting. I even remember Korea. I couldn't wait to turn seventeen, so I could join the army and go over there to fight alongside the Yanks and defeat those friggin' commies. (Though I had no more real understanding of what a Communist was than I did of Einstein's theory of relativity.) Goddamn fool I was too, though I didn't think so then, but I sure as hell came to, and still do.
Thank goodness the war ended in a stalemate just before I was old enough to really be a dummy.
You do need to get you head around this one, Frank. You're too damned smart not to.
Intervention into the internal affairs of other nations and people, even for the purest aesthetic or moral "war" reasons, just doesn't work. You may actually succeed in stopping and delaying the inevitable, which is why there is a tendency to stay and stay, because the minute you leave, the old never finally resolved into winners and losers history, reasserts itself back to life. Or, you overstay your welcome to everyone, and become the enemy yourself.
Better you keep your forces at home, send them aid and advisers through the NGOs, if they want them, or encourage and discourage undesirable actions in other ways; trade sanctions, boycotts, and restrictions on what you will and will not trade. It's the clearest signal you can send that your intentions are anything but imperialist.
We have to move away from this carte blanche underwriting of Big Power interference in the internal affairs of always smaller and weaker states. It's never the other way around, assuming you've not been interfering in their lives.
And there are no absolutes in life and nature, or certainly precious goddamn few. So I would certainly not want to say that there can never be an exception. Because just then there will be one, of course.
Ooooo. It's called a "spicy" fruit cake. The batter kind of tastes like an English plum pudding. Nutmeg. Mmmmmm. Love nutmeg.
Now the batter sits in the pans, in the fridge overnight. to "mellow", then into the oven early tomorrow morning.
Then I'll wrap them in a Grand Marnier soaked teatowel, and into tins 'til the Winter Solstice festivities. :-) Re-drizzling with Grand Marnier as needed-, about once a week.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Woodward's on CNN bringing down the Bushies and promoting his book, the information in which he's sat on for a suspiciously long time.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Is it just me or has Woodward's Post been cheerleading the Bushies all along for these stupid wars?
Nana
5 years ago
Here we are, debating Canada's actions in Afghanistan, and in the meantime we have 3 ships in the Nato armada being assembled in the Persian Gulf and Eastern Mediteranian.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NAZ20061001&articleId=3361
IAMC
5 years ago
I don't think this a stupid war. And if it is stupid it's stupid because of the extreme liberalism the west has been living in. The reason some people can call it stupid is a full filment of there very own wet dream. This wet dream happened during the VietNam war, where North American politicians first jumped on the slippery slope created by liberals at the time, whereas they used to hard fought freedoms they were granted, to undermine the war effort. A war effort that was designed to halt the spread of communism throughout the world. I was a child of the sixties, me and David Horowitz are ashamed of what we were trying to do. Trying to tear down the judaeo-christian values.
What a lousy job has been done by these sixties refugees. People that don't appear as the hippies they were then.
I love The Grateful Dead, and I can see many on this site that are still listening.
Frank
5 years ago
I'm back.
I wasn't born when you got married. So I'm younger than 49.
I understand why you guys are against our being in Afghanistan. Because we're coming in after the US and it looks like we're there to mop up after a US operation.
My thing here though is we haven't helped anyone else either. If Cuba and Venezuela and Bolivia were invaded by the US our assisting those 3 countries could not be seen as beating up on the US yet we still wouldn't do it.
We never assist anyone whether they need our help against a great power, a regional power (East Timor) or an ethnic group (Hutus) or just a group of thugs (the Contras).
As for the Taliban, they really haven't demonstrated that they have any support outside the Kandahar/Pakistan border regions. Seems to be ethnic based. If they do in fact have the support of the other groups that they insist on killing then we should leave, I just don't think they do.
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
Whatever is happens in Afghanistan, I believe that Canada needs to be making a huge effort to feed, house and educate the people while we help them develop the region so that the people can live self-sufficiently in peace.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
It's way too late to add much of substance to what's gone before here. I'll just put in my two bits worth and leave it at that.
I was marginally supportive of the original effort in Afghanistan but only for the full package of:
1. ousting the Taliban;
2. Helping the Afghans themselves set up a representative government; and, most importantly,
3. Pouring in the promised billions necessary to rebuild the infrastructure and commerce (remove tariff walls that keep cheap Afghan goods out of western markets (US)) and give the people a fighting chance to have a decent relatively modern life.
When 2, and, especially, 3 were stillborn we should have told the Americans and the Brits we were out of there. We should have put all the money and lives we've blown on this hopeless cause into direct and indirect assistance to Afghani people on the ground - through local Afghan institutions and groups like the one sponsored by the Aga Khan. That would have kept Canada committed without tying us to American hegemony and probably saved the lives of 36 young Canadians.
I think there's room for Frank's idealism - but not riding on this American train. We could do lots more with our foreign aid dollars to make a positive difference, and not just in Afghanistan – but we can’t pretend there’s anything noble in what America is doing in its international role and we need to get far away from them fast. They’re more interesting in justifying torture than they are in doing anything positive – as they almost always have been since 1948.
murdock
5 years ago
jimtan,
yup and that would be the WW1 that is commonly referred to as 'The Seven Years War'.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
North Korea just exploded its nuclear 'device'.
Is Kim JOng Il in cahoots with Karl Rove?
murdock
5 years ago
Frank and jimtan,
The entire approach of falling-back and doing the reconstruction and developing a region of greater prosperity is entirely in keeping with the 'march region' approach that the Carolingian dyansties did so well 1000 years ago.
The problem is that it will not sell to the MTV generation.
murdock
5 years ago
Nana,
this is the truth of all march regions
Gerhardius
5 years ago
This is no shock. The Democrats involvement in Watergate was linked to a call girl ring run out of DNC offices. The trouble is that there is plenty of time for an October Surprise from the Republicans, plus the electronic voting machines and compliant judiciary. North Korea has tested their nuke, perhaps Cheney will use that as the bogeyman.
murdock
5 years ago
Frank,
Herein lies the major problem of dealing with this mountainous and tribal land.
There is no such thing as an 'Afghani' person, let alone a single govenance that we can negotiate with. Such a problem needs 'alliances' and common-problem solutions to work towards a collective improvement. The difficulty is each river valley may have been 'at-odds' with one another for the past 2000 years, that conflict needs solution first before any co-ordination or co-operation will take place.
One valley may want us to help, the other not...and so on throughout the country. The trick is to find the first valley that wants the help and can work with us then pour all efforts into that region, once the benefits are seen be their neighbors, the 'growth' of a nation or even a co-ortinated action can begin.
Without it all we are doing is ensuring that no valley or region will want us there since all we bring with us is more 'gunboat diplomacy', death, destruction and hatred.
murdock
5 years ago
Frank,
Why would anyone want to 'stand' for election to the US backed 'parliament' that pretends to have anything to say in any other place and Khabul?
If the martians came to BC tomorrow and executed all the policemen, firemen, politicians and aldermen; then 24 hours later hand-picked a few "expatriot" BC'er to 'fill-in' in a 'provisional' government in BC, all the while keeping their alien killing machines patrolling the skies over BC, would you want to vote for the 'provisional' government martian supporters or try to find another way to 'freedom'?
Frank
5 years ago
murdock, agreed. But then, previous to today I have also said we have to turn on our "allies". That we're supporting a corrupt government and assisting the criminal Northern Alliance. The Taliban aren't the only bad guy in Afghanistan.
But we have had a clear indication from the Afghani people (your problem with the word "Afghani" is noted and I agree but even so) that they do want democracy. They don't want to be ruled by a theocracy or a group of criminals nor foreigners. What they want is security to build their own institutions.
The problem is they're being attacked by a group of thugs with the support of a major ethnic group and neighbouring Pakistan. So they will fail. Most NATO countries don't want anything to do with the place. Britain and the US want out I'm sure. So that leaves us.
Now I realize we don't have the strength to save the Afghans from what will happen to them eventually. And like you I have read the history of Britain's first invasion of Afghanistan and subsequent retreat. Its not an easy place to march out of.
However, its wrong to knowingly let someone die. If we're not willing to take over the entire NATO mission in Afghanistan and devote the WW2 scale resources we would devote if they were white Europeans and wipe out the Taliban and Northern Alliance and secure the Pakistani border then shouldn't we accept as refugees any Afghan who fears life under the Taliban? (because as far as I'm concerned if the Taliban don't qualify as a reason to come to Canada then what would)
As I said before, we're very good at finding reasons not to help other people. Its time Canada stopped riding on an undeserved reputation for doing the right thing. Since the Dutch in 1945 we've never done the right thing even when its been countries in our own hemisphere like Chile and Argentina or Haiti, Nicaragua and Guatamala. In all those cases we could have stood up to the USA but chose not to. Eventually it'll be our turn to face the music and just who will we ask to come to our assistance in return? Nobody else owes us a thing because the only thing we've done for others when they're suffering is a token show of the flag or provide kickbacks to Cdn business through our so-called Aid schemes or basically tell them to go numb, wait for it to end and we'll make a speech on their behalf.
Nana
5 years ago
Murdock that's a really good analogy you just made, but WW1 lasted 4 years and the 7 years war was 1756-63. Pardon me, but is there a joke buried in there somewhere.
Frank
5 years ago
Nana, I think what murdock is referring to is that the Seven Years War saw the rise of Prussia under Frederick the Great.
Because WW1 may have led to WW2 but the 1870 war led to WW1, the Napoleonic wars led to 1866 and 1870 etc.
The rise of the German Empire began on the fields of Rossbach and Leuthen in the 7YW.
kurt
5 years ago
I like the suggestion of buying up Afganistan's poppies (Gwynne Dyer's recommendation, actually) and then burning it or storing it for medical use or whatever. In the meantime we can encourage them to switch to less noxious crops, while saving a lot of solders' lives and a huge bundle of cash. A practical solution, sensible, and it would cut the Taliban off at the knees. The bottom line is that people, including Afghans, need to eat and pay their bills. Once you have that, human rights, public education and free speech tend to fall in place.
kurt
5 years ago
BTW, the UN, Nato etc. will never send troops to Darfur. It isn't going to happen. And I'm not even sure that that would be any solution, and suspect it would be another Somalia or worse. We should provide aid and logistical support to the African Union's troops, obviously, but those familiar with the situation say that a political solution is the only feasible way to right the wrongs and save lives.
kurt
5 years ago
Another thing, stop dissing the Western ideas and faulting Kipling's "white man's burden" — for example, India is a beacon of of light in the East compared to their neighbours. Sure, they have problems and much to improve on but they have brilliant minds and have accomplished much, building on the basics which the British imperiaists have left them — they're the world's biggest democracy. A visit to India and Pakistan will clearly show you the difference between night and day.
While on the topic of imperialism, perhaps it's arguable that Iran is flexing its economic muscle at Afghanistan's expense. Even shopkeepers in Herat complain that Iran's heavily subsidized imports of foodstuffs to Afghanistan are undermining the ability of Afghans to compete in agricultural production. If you could buy food cheaper from Iran than from your Afghan neighbour what would you choose? You'd probably grow poppies if you were an Afghan.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Most wars can be boiled down to simple realities.
Here's the heart of the matter in Afghanistan:
Are the Taliban just a pack of criminals who want to return to power and reinstate their brutal fundamentalist regime?
Or: Has the 'insurgency' now morphed into the popular resistance which is at the heart of MK Bhadrakumar's 'Asia Times' article, "Afghanistan: Why Nato Cannot Win."
If Bhadrakumar's correct in his assessment that it's not only the old Taliban who are fighting Nato, but the whole nation, then Canada's in the wrong war at the wrong time, and we're being duped.
Simple!
Now, if Bhadrakumar's wrong, then of course, Frank and IAMC are correct, and Nana and I are in a Vietnam fantasy, as IAMC suggests.
Coyote
5 years ago
49, Frank!
My God. Nobody is that young on the planet anymore, are they?
Okay, which excuse your getting some things wrong. :-)
murdock
5 years ago
Frank,
Great discussion, here are some more points:
Nor did the Soviets seem to understand that vital reality.
Interesting concept, wrong to let someone knowingly die.
We do this all the time in hospitals, when there is nothing more to be done. I have personally had to watch a cancer patient friend of mine wither away - not permitted to tell others of his predicament due to his request to stay private and my respect of his desire to keep his pain private.
Your suggestion has been to extend Canadian Citizenship to those Afghani's that wish to emigrate, then to pay the way for that emigration. This in alternative to remaining in a land dominated by Taliban midnset.
The area, long ago, was called Kwarizam (along with parts of China and Pakistan - that connect to Afghanistan). The sultan of that region, when approached by Mongol diplomats, decided to kill the emissaries. Then more diplomats came with gifts, these too were killed and the gifts taken. The mongol response was to arrive with the enitre Mongol army and invade, killing not only the leadership but vast numbers of the populace. The invastion stopped in the Don River basin...in central Russia.
My point here is that the 'collective memory' of many Afghani families recalls this (and other) major invasions. The common man knows from his family tales that such things happen and that they are likely to happen again. The Taliban and before them the Mujehedin, are well aware of this and have used these tales, stories and examples to 'lever' more local support.
Given our, Canada, connection to the US Operation Enduring Freedom and the method of operation conduct since the major US pull out; I see no reason why the ordinary Afghani would not consider CANADA as the same as the Mongol invasion hundreds of years ago...or the Soviet invasion of the last century. To them, thru their collective tales these events are the SAME THING.
To really make a difference we either need to make some friends and help them -
and only them so that a different method of living that works well can be seen and lived. This will take a more 'open hand' approach, more like what MSF was doing in the 4 decades prior to the US led invasion, not the 'merchants of death' that we are now.
Oh we will get something in return ... more hot air.
murdock
5 years ago
Coyote,
I'm only 39 and all three of my children are under 8.
Frank
5 years ago
49? Actually I'm 43
We went through the same thing (cancer) last year murdock. But not being able to help someone with cancer is different than getting on a helicopter and leaving a kid in Kabul to get shot in the back of the head because she's a girl that knows how to read.
Now considering how much Canada benefits from taking the most educated people out of the 3rd world and bringing them here to work for minimum wage I think we can afford to put something back.
Either protect and help the non-Taliban area of Afghanistan keeping our forces on the defensive or allowing the people that would otherwise be executed to come here.
Truman Green
5 years ago
So, Frank and Murdock, you actually think this is primarily a humanitarian effort, then?
Amazing!
Nana
5 years ago
Tonight, the Passionate Eye, 10 pm Newsworld, is doing a doc on mercenaries called Guns For Hire.
lynn
5 years ago
In regard to these so-called humanitarian efforts, I highly suggest reading the article "Canadian Capital in Asia" (Oct.6/2006) by Harsha Walia, a South Asian activist based in Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories).
In it humanitarian aid, often in the form of strategically placed NGO's, is alluded to as one of the dominant manifestations of imperialism, where the NGO "becomes an arm of the international bureaucracy that ends up, consciously or unconsciously, doing the work of imperialism".
It's detailed and well worth the read:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=102&ItemID=11147
Frank
5 years ago
Truman, I don't think the US invasion of Afghanistan was a humanitarian mission, but I think Canada can and should make it such.
Actually, I don't want to speak for Ron but I believe his view seriously differs from mine in that he thinks we should support the US plan for Afghanistan, whereas I'm saying Canada should take over the effort and put our resources at the disposal of and for the benefit of the Afghan people.
Frank
5 years ago
lynn, that's exactly what I was saying earlier about our so-called "Aid efforts" where the biggest beneficiary is Cdn business. The Afghans don't need Cdns to pay for Cargill wheat dumped on them.
murdock
5 years ago
Truman Green, misunderstanding, posted:
Amazing!
I cannot speak for Frank, I fully see the action in Afghanistan as neo-Imperialism in the most brutal sense from US led Operation Eduring Freedom to the 'shell-game' of reconstruction going on now.
The shills are the mass-media, as usual.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Frank, how do you propose we accomplish this "taking over" of the US-Nato plan for just killing thousands or hundreds of thousands in the resistance movement?
Can't you see that, in the eyes of most Afghans we're just an invading force in their country.
The Taliban were a disgusting government, as you say, but not really much worse than the Saudi royal family, or the fake democratic governments in Pakistan, Syria, Iran or Egypt.
So you get lynn's point about the phony aid; you understand mine that it's not primarily a humanitarian efforct.
I don't see that you have much left of your argument for our military action, and if you seriously ponder whether the Taliban have now got popular support for the risistance, I think your entire argument falls apart.
Not to mention the marketing programs of Harper, Defence staff chief, Hillier and Defense Minister, O'Conner.
Frank
5 years ago
I agree with murdock.
Being as no one else wants to be there, taking over the mission wouldn't be any problem. I didn't see anyone in Europe complain and say no fair when we volunteered to extend the mission 2 more years. Then, as I said, expand our army as required, on the scale of WW2. Yes, I realize it won't ever happen but then our opinions here don't make Cdn policy anyway. Its an intellectual exercise.
Where's the proof of that? I don't see many Afghans fighting us. In fact, their turnout for the election was very good and they weren't there to vote for Taliban write-ins.
True, the difference is that unlike those states, the Afghan government has already been toppled and we're already there. The world wouldn't be too happy if tomorrow we decided to land the Princess Pats at Alexandria.
Actually I've been saying here over and over that our aid efforts for the past 60 years have been phony. And being as I agree with murdock's assessment I can't very well say that the current mission is humanitarian.
Well, I don't believe the Taliban have broad support outside Pakistan. I think the election shows Afghans are open to change. I just don't believe Canada will deliver. We never do. I'm simply saying we should.
So let me turn this around. You agree that our past aid efforts are phony, that none of our missions can be remotely called "humanitarian" and perhaps you agree with me that peacekeeping is also a sham? Nothing more than showing the flag without having to spend any real money or be of any real help.
So then why do you support the same old same old? Considering how much money and talent we've sucked out of the 3rd world over the past few decades, would you ever support us actually something something right?
Frank
5 years ago
the last line of course should read ... doing something right?
Truman Green
5 years ago
Sorry, Murdock. You're right. I misinterpreted your point of view. Now that I reread your posts, I don't know how I could have made that mistake--but I did. No excuses.
Coyote
5 years ago
Hell Murdock, I've been 39 coming on 39 years myself. :-)
I'm shocked. Frank.
Got no time though. Off to the daughter's house for supper.
Frank
5 years ago
At what? My age?
Jack's
5 years ago
There are and were reports that Hamid Karzai's election was a model of corruption - so maybe he can't be considered as representing the Afghan people. War lords still have an important voice in government since many occupy parliamentary seats.
What really stirred things up in Afghanistan was the Americans at Guantanamo desecrating the Koran (the Islamic bible). This action alone won a lot of Taliban supporters and is remembered to this day.
No doubt that the Afghans are identifying Canadians as U.S. puppets.
I say NATO get out and let Afghanistan evolve. We are just NOT going to make a difference there.
Truman Green
5 years ago
So, Frank, you agree that we're not really doing a humanitarian mission in Afghanistan. Well, I watched Hillier and O'Conner claiming that we are--on CBC last night.
But, what else could these guys say?
Once you accept the job of Chief of Defense Staff or Minister of Defence, you have to support the Prime Minister or get out.
These guys aren't idiots. They know perfectly well that all that can be accomplished in Afghanistan by 2500 Canadian troops is a few hundred body bags and military funerals, and Harper parroting Bushian cliches like "We don't cut and run."
Frank, if we're not really doing a humanitarian mission, what the hell are we doing there, then?
Frank
5 years ago
At the moment all we're doing is helping NATO prevent the Taliban from killing people for a short period of time till we decide we've done enough to enhance our own self-importance and then we'll go home and make speeaches about how we did our part as the Taliban renew their oppression.
And that's right in line with what Canadians want.
spanky
5 years ago
Oh really dumbass? Do you really think you are the first person to suggestthese old thoughts? The question is what are canadians going to do about our illegal war? Complacency will be the biggest crime of our new century.
Frank
5 years ago
My ass is thoroughly depressed at being found out.
I thought it would be poverty, overpopulation and global warming. Somehow the idea it might be complacency cheers me up.
BC Mary
5 years ago
I heard Rick Hillier last evening too. He made me so angry, I complained to CBC's Evan Solomon who was interviewing Hillier.
Know what Hillier said? He said that Canadians were so stupid, they expected Afghanistan to be concluded within 1 hour, just like a TV drama ... "but" he pontificated smugly, "war doesn't go like that," or words to that effect. Bastard.
As for O'Connor, he sat like a doomed lizard refusing to answer most key questions about which countries would, or would not, send troops to Afghanistan to relieve or at least support the Canadian soldiers.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Yes, B.C. Mary. Hillier's easily one of the most disgusting leaders in Canada.
He might have fooled a few people, but not me. He loves war.
IAMC
5 years ago
Has anyone seen the new commercials the Canadian Armed Forces or running on MSM to promote recruitment?
They are cutting edge. They show the mission like a video game. Canadian soldiers stealing through the dark of night, entering an enemy stronghold, through dark hallways, bashing down a door, killing the enemy.
This is a huge departure from the formerly benign efforts.
This commercial promotes Canadians as being problem solvers, rather than problem enablers.
I am so proud of the turn that Canada has taken, from being pussies to warriors.
God love Hillier, who was appointed by Paul Martin. A Newfoundlander that is truly a Canadian figure.
Frank
5 years ago
As Ron baits his hook
DPL
5 years ago
IAMC likes the commercials. Good show, maybe he will go sign on.But best hurry as the Brit. General runing the show says results in six months or we lose. Somebody beter tell Good old Steve who has Canadian troops there for a few more years. Oh we are rebuilding says a few of the experts, but things look pretty dismal.
IAMC
5 years ago
Did you see how moveon.org osed a Canadian soldier as an example of their flaky attemt at supportind some [the] troops? The left in America is really grasping at straws right now. Every attempt they have made to dissrupt the Repulicans has come up short.
I am not so bold as to say the Republicans might not experience losses, but I don't see much success by the Democratic smear campaingg. What are they going to come with next?
Certainly not any ideas on how to improve the country, only another conspiracy theory.
All is not lost for the Republicans in the upcoming mid-term election, but it ain't goona be EZ.
Frank
5 years ago
Oh I don't know, they seemed to do pretty good with the Mark Foley and male interns thing. Admit it Ron, that hurt.
Actually, it was only a few short months ago you were predicting the Repubs would gain or stay the same.
After the bit about Republicans, Mark Foloey and hypocrisy? How about that place next to Iran called Iraq? Or that guy bin Laden not being caught or maybe how the economy has never really performed that well under 6 years of Bush?
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Or the fact the president of the USA is someone who thinks torture is just fine.
Frank, I sympathize with your essential point, but, I think we need to cut our losses and, more important, find new friends, and get the hell out now.
We may well be able to do something constructive and fundamental and radical later on. Not now though, the well's been thoroughly poisoned and it's time to get out before more Canadians die.
Harper’s way is the way of death and disgrace and the hate that he feels in his bones for anyone who doesn’t ‘buy’ his christianist way of looking at things. I’m sorry, but in my view the longer we stay the worse it is for both Canada and Afghanistan.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
And this is just for you Ron/IAMC - on just how popular your hero George Bush actually is among his countrymen and women - from ABC:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2546110&page=1
Alcibiades
5 years ago
And here's some even worse news from Gallup and US News and World Report:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-09-poll_x.htm
Alcibiades
5 years ago
One hopes this kind of thing won't find a place in the next federal election campaign here in Canada. With Harper as leader of the neoconservative party it might not be too far from reality:
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1160125527178
Alcibiades
5 years ago
And there's this to chew on as well:
NATO chief warns of Afghan tipping point
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press WritersSun Oct 8, 2:41 PM ET
NATO's top commander in Afghanistan said Sunday the country was at a tipping point and warned Afghans would likely switch their allegiance to resurgent Taliban militants if there are no visible improvements in people's lives in the next six months.
Gen. David Richards, a British officer who commands NATO's 32,000 troops here, warned in an interview with The Associated Press that if life doesn't get better over the winter, most Afghans could switch sides.
"They will say, 'We do not want the Taliban but then we would rather have that austere and unpleasant life that that might involve than another five years of fighting,'" Richards said.
Afghanistan is going through its worst bout of violence since the U.S.-led invasion removed the former Taliban regime from power five years ago. The Taliban has made a comeback in the south and east of the country and is seriously threatening Western attempts to stabilize the country after almost three decades of war.
"If we collectively ... do not exploit this winter to start achieving concrete and visible improvement," then some 70 percent of Afghans could switch sides, Richards told The Associated Press.
Richards will command NATO's troops in Afghanistan, including 12,000 U.S. forces, until February, when U.S. Gen. Dan K. McNeil will take command.
The British general said he'd like to have about 2,500 additional troops to form a reserve battalion to help speed up reconstruction and development efforts.
The south of the country, where NATO troops have fought their most intense battles this year, has been "broadly stabilized," Richards said.
"We have created an opportunity," following the intense fighting that left over 500 militants dead in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, he said. "If we do not take advantage of this, then you can pour an additional 10,000 troops next year and we would not succeed because we would have lost by then the consent of the people."
Fiat lux
5 years ago
It is not only a wrong, but a stupid mission trying to occupy a country without roads, like Afghanistan, with 20,000 troops. The Russians didn't succeed with 130,000 and suffered tremendous losses.
It would need at least 500,000 infantry for an occupation of 20 years to change the face of that country. Motorized troops are a waste of time and energy.
In any case, the Taliban have been put into power, financed and feted by the USA, before they balked on the oil pipeline. Surprisingly, no governments of the present occupying forces found any problem with their brutality and inhuman policies before they stopped following multinational corporate orders.
This country's involvement is nothing more than a propaganda affair to sell the idea of the Canadian forces being integrated into a continental army, with the full cooperation of turncoat generals, involved in the plans and dreaming of wearing US uniforms, to serve the imperial ambitions of multinatonal corporations.
The first steps to the NAU, designed and forced on us by Tom d'Aquino's Council of Chief Exectives, the real, backroom government of Canada for the past 20 years, giving orders to politicians.
Ed Deak. Big Lake.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
I think you're dead on Ed. Harper has moved this agenda forward at least 50% from the program of the previous government - which was bad enough.
We need to get out now. Right now.
Colin
5 years ago
Some of this article is fairly good, however;
Canada was involved in UNFIL, which failed in it’s mandate to prevent elements within Lebanon from attacking Israel. If Hezbollah attacks again and the UN force is caught between the two opposing sides, then Canadian troops will be forced to fight either or both the Hezbollah or IDF, not a pretty picture. There are far better ways for Canada to be involved there than troops. Even France balked at sending troops, despite being the biggest promoter of the mission.
99% of the Muslims in the world will never hear or read Hillers statements, non-issue
Dafur
Sudan has made it quite clear that a UN mission there would be considered an act of war. Canada and it’s military have been a big supporter of the AU forces there, who are using Canadian Armoured vehicles to carry out their tasks. The AU troops were trained by Canadian soldiers to operate them. At present the only way for the UN to take over the mission is to accept that genocide is taking place there, a distinction that the UN is careful to avoid, therefore allowing itself to say much and do little.
So it’s ok if Canadian soldiers die in Dafur, but not Afghanistan?
The Liberals were told a decade ago that the Canadian military is to small to be able to respond to any significant events, they ignored the advice and now we can not take on any other missions, if you actually listened to the soldiers you would understand just how stretched we are to maintain the commitment in Afghanistan.
Peacekeeping
When both sides want to have peace and are willing to play the game with the same rules, then gives us a call, but be prepared to support a 3 decade long mission like Cyprus. Anything else is war or “Peacemakingâ€
The land mine issue is really straining the realms of credibility here. The soldiers complied with their orders, the fact that the US helped protect our soldiers by laying them is not illegal.
Abu Ghraib: Dumb it was, but far less horrific than what went on there under the previous regime.
Self image: As a Canadian I am proud of our country and it’s commitment to it’s international duties. What Canada is doing now will earn it the international respect that we once had.
I notice that the article fails to mention that this is a UN sanctioned mission, recently renewed by the Security Council.
Instead of whining about working with the US or the fact that Hiller actually talks like a soldier, the author should have argued that we start taking the fight to the Mosques and begin to deal with the poison being spread there by radical imams, who promotes ideas contrary to our culture. I have personally witnessed Imams in mosques in Vancouver promoting this ideology of hate.
The current world crisis with Islam is convergence of Radical Whabbism (and radical Shiites in certain countries) and a large population of young males in Islamic countries, Radical Islam is currently fighting against every other major political or religious groups around the world (not to mention other Muslims). This is not a west vs Islam issue, even Dafur is part of a Islamic ethnic cleansing campaign
Coyote
5 years ago
Fait wrote,
Which is something my friend Frank needs to more fully appreciate, I think, or has forgotten. And which needs to be remembered even in this Darfur mission the "humanitarian concerned" right is plumping for now-, where the Chinese have secured oil concessions, while the US has had its nose pushed out of a share of the pie. Were it not for that, my be is, there would be a whole lot less there and here for this so-called, but bullshitt humanitarian mission as well.
We need to stop this allowing ourselves to be led by the nose into these so-called goddamn "humanitarian missions" , at the leading hand of the US Empire, which are at root, when everything else is stripped away, but a cover for their global Manifest Destiny ambitions. To which we play they compliant buffoon state.
While I admit even that Lynn is right. That much of the activity of these NGO's serve to create states of dependency in backward parts of the world, where the new rising imperialist ambitions of Amerika nonetheless have a "control interests". And that these NGOs are often cover for "official" espionage and treachery.
But which still does not obviate the need or desirability for a fair and equitable "material humanitarian aid" system I think, as best can be secured, tailored and determined by the victims on the ground, not the outside handlers, as a course which is preferable over military interference-, and more often than not, used as a cover for outside interests other than those of the actual victims. It is always complex, of course, but preferable to the resentments which lead to desires for revenge, even IF well intended, that come with outside military interferences and occupations.
Non-interference in the internal affairs of each others societies is a new global state of affairs and arrangement of global relations that we need to reach as a prerequisite, which is no less in our own interest vis a vis the US Empire. With whom we have our own interference issues. Which doesn't mean that one doesn't provide "assistance" in a way and in a "form" as needed, when and where it is required. Still recognizing that societies have to individually resolve their own critical political and social problems without outside interference, no less than we.
The world, however, really does need to begin to move away from military centred solutions and interferences.
For example, I saw figures the other day, which showed that where the so-called "allies" in Afghanistan had spent something in the neighbourhood of $4.8 or $8.4 billion on the use of military force, (this part of the equation I can't remember exactly), that only $212 million has gone to actual material reconstruction. (If I can find the story out there, I will post it later.)
And you know that is entirely likely near always the ratio on these militarized "humanitarian missions." Afghan society would have a far better result however, and we made more friends process, even perhaps of the Taliban, was the pipeline not the actual issue, if even the ratio was the other opposite way around. Which assumes, of course, that Frank is correct, and that is the actual object of the mission. Which I most certainly do dispute.
alive
5 years ago
The Twin towers (of 9-11 fame) was the US symbol of its centre of power! Just as important to amerikkans as the mosques are to Islam!
Keeping that in mind you can maybe understand the kind of reaction that would happen?
I hope you can see it?
Coyote
5 years ago
Ehhhhh. And a very important correction is, "I have been 39 for 29 years." It's already getting late enough in my life, without me fast forwarding it. :-) LOL
rkewen
5 years ago
I just want to comment on how well-reasoned I found Mr. Byers article. He has laid out in a logical manner all the facts surrounding Canada's misled involvement in truly "poor" Afghanistan and I only wish the Mainstream Media and our government would be as forthcoming regarding the reasons, the goals and obstacles to this American style intervention in a country halfway around the world.
By the way, regarding the disproportionate share of the load being borne by Canada in the current debacle in Afghanistan: a recent statistical examination of casualties showed that a Canadian soldier deployed to Afghanistan today is six times more likely to come home in a box than an American deployed to Iraq - this ain't a poll, just math.
One constant throughout centuries now has been that the Afghanis do not like outsiders trying to tell them how to live or helping to run their country (corporate puppets like Karzaid excepted). Ask the British, the Chinese, and most recently the Russians how successful they have been there in spite of their massive advantages in size and military power. I have no tin foil headgear, but still feel that more of 9/11 was planned and facilitated inside the beltway of Washington D.C. than any cave in Afghanistan (by a man previously backed by the US and CIA).
Maybe the Harp Seal that walks like a man should study the background of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, to name just two, before becoming an accomplice of the criminal administration of the United States. The biggest threat to Canada isn't from Afghanistan, Hezzbollah, Hamas, North Korea or Iran but from the empire of greed to our immediate south.
In an ideal world next year Stevie Boy could join his buddies Cheney, the Idiot In Chief, Rumsfeld and Condi in the Carribean. The orange jumpsuits are supplied free at Club Med - Gitmo branch.
Nana
5 years ago
Colin
UNFIL did not "fail in its mandate to prevent Hesbollah from attacking Israel."
UNFILs installation was bombed by the Israelis because it was witness to fact that the border incursions were overwhelmingly from Israel. It is well documented that the soldiers Israel claimed were kidnapped were in fact captured in Lebanon Israel was the agressor and used the incident to obliterate 15 years of reconstruction in Lebanon.
rkewen
5 years ago
Hi Coyote, been meaning to answer your letter to the Coot, that I finally found. Haven't been monitoring that email account very closely since the Leg Raid apparently became classified and the House...has been in remission.
Good to see you back at the Tyee though and now that I know you're my elder I'll have to treat you with even more respect!
I just had a birthday, but haven't been 39 as long and will never catch up.
Frank
5 years ago
Exactly, Canada under Chretien and Martin was just fine with Taliban oppression. I didn't see them do a thing.
In fact, Canadians were fine with the genocide in Rwanda too based on the fact we didn't do anything to stop it.
Same with Contras killing Nicaragan peasants. Canada stood aside and let it happen and then hypocritically applauded the "resotoring of democracy" when the Sandanistas lost the election.
Obviously Darfur doesn't keep us awake at night either. Nor the military dictator running Pakistan. Nor the Israeli destruction of Lebanon.
And there's lots of bad governments in different countries oppressing or even sometimes brutalizing their populations but we don't want to help beyond speeches and corporate subsidies.
In fact, there's not one place in the world Canada cares much about except Canada.
I suggest reading up on the West's non-involvement in the Spanish Civil War. How a display of force could have saved a lot of left-wing Spaniards from being shot against a wall or driven into the sea at Barcelona. Instead we chose to do nothing yet the other side was only too happy to help Franco with whatever he needed. The result was dictatorship.
Its all well and good to say we're not our brother's keeper and close our wyes to the rest of the world. After all that's how the Pinochets of the world are able to rise and stay in power so long. As the old saying goes, for evil to flourish good men just have to do nothing.
Frank
5 years ago
Now if all you guys were saying to me, geez Frank we just went through a long struggle in Rwanda and before that we lost 1500 troops saving Nicaragua from Reagan and before that we lost 2500 troops over 5 years keeping Chileans and Argentinians free then I could understand it.
That we have worked hard to protect people from thugs. But we haven't. We don't protect anyone when they're on the right side of the USA or on the wrong side of the USA or ignored by the USA.
The last time we sent large numbers of troops instead of a "show the flag" public relations exercise was WW2.
I realize you might respond with how we're losing troops now in Afghanistan but we're not there to win, we're just there to get on the good side of our major trading partners again. The Afghans mean nothing to us except it'll make for interesting tv when the Taliban take over again.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Sorry Colin, you're completely off base on UNFIL. Here's its actual mandate:
Alcibiades
5 years ago
I think that's pretty much what I've been saying Frank. Except for the TV bit; I think Harper and his handlers actually want a few clips of pee wee in camo gear for the next election campaign.
I have no problem with helping the Afghans, any more than I would have had a problem if Romeo Dallaire had decided to ignore his masters in New York and had lost every Canadian in Rwanda in a pyrrhic attempt to stop the genocide there. I just can't see that we, or anyone, will ever reform anything with the muzzle of a gun – even the results in the former Yugoslavia (greater Serbia or whatever they’re calling it) and Kosovo are far from positive. We should fight when directly threatened and attacked – almost never otherwise.
Frank
5 years ago
But the past demonstrates that armed soldiers are the only way to stop thugs. We sent food aid to Britain in 1940 but we also sent aircrew, ships and Monty was pretty happy to see our First Division arrive too.
You can't stop Hitlers, Francos, Pinochets and Omar Mullahs with sacks of wheat.
And we are big enough to help Afghanistan on our own. Canada is just under a third of the size that the USA was at the end of WW2 when they helped Europe with the Marshall Plan.
If you saw a kid across the street getting beaten you wouldn't send a get well card and a new toy, you'd call the police or intervene yourself because force is sometimes required.
Nana
5 years ago
Frank We have a population of 32 million in a world of 6 billion. We are increasingly being stripped of control of our lives and our resources.(see
http://www.hydrofactsbc.ca/
for the latest impending outrage)
We have governments federally and provincially which aid and abet in this ongoing theft. I do not think we could legally take on the role you wish us to even if we had the will and the economy to do so.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Frank, I don't believe a guy with your smarts could really believe what you're saying.
Anyhow, maybe Gerard Kennedy, who's calling for a reevaluation of our role in Afghanistan might just have a chance to beat that disgusting Bushian, Ignatieff, who's been sent here to deliver Canada to the North American Union.
Could happen!
Truman Green
5 years ago
Only problem with your "armed soldiers" analogy, Frank is that to the Afghan resistance, Canadian soldiers are being seen more and more as the "thugs."
Coyote
5 years ago
And I don't dispute the philosophy that "I am my brother' keeper." It is what is supposed to separate "the left" from the "self-centred right." It is much a matter of how one chooses to do that though, Frank. As I'm sure you well know.
And as much as I sympathized with the reds and blacks of the Spanish Civil War, the intrusion of outside elements and the actual value of their contribution though, can be much a matter of dispute. It can even still be argued that it might very well have indeed been better to have left matters to the entire solution of the Spanish people themselves. Which I would indeed argue.
For all their idealism and good intentions, history demonstrates as much I think, that they only served to complicate and muddy the waters of "Spanish" socio-political reality, from which the left has still not fully recovered in Spain. And the entire likelihood is that there may well have emerged a Soviet style regime in Spain, certainly a war between "the Stalinists and the Trots and Anarchists". Which with hindsight...
In any case, that was then, from which the left emerged still far from entirely successful, and from which it is still not generally recovered on many fronts, and which cliches/stereotypes it is still much mired in, I would say.
My view is that we are in a new time, which call for a new vision and a re-invention of the radical or "revolutionary" left. And as part of that, a recognition that all peoples have to find the ways to advance in their own ways and conditions, without outside interferences from either left or right States. The old model failed badly. Remember?
(As an old Communist myself, I am acutely aware of the harm done by these kinds of interventions, and the "cover stories" behind which they were carried out. Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and no less Afghanistan are sharp and clear in my memory and historical experience.)
Which does not mean a complete disengagement of concern and assistance to other peoples, their calamities and struggles. It's a matter of how we choose to do that.
Frank
5 years ago
Nana, I understand we can't fix everything. But we can try and we can have some impact. We are a member of the G7 and we're richer than most other countries. We also have more than double the population we had when we raised 5+ divisions (2 of them armoured) (plus one that stayed in Canada), a large airforce and a large navy. Just increasing the royalties on our commodities to the level that Norway charges could pay for an enlarged army.
The United Nations does many things well but saving people from military dictatorships is not one of them. Even if Canada built an army and put it at the disposal of the U.N., great power politics on the Security Council would still prevent its use.
No, the world is not getting better in spite of the fact we've stayed on the sidelines. Canada should disengage from NATO and set its own foreign policy based on human rights and a will to use force.
Colin
5 years ago
Nana
UNFIL should have pulled out as soon as the bombs started falling. The Canadian Officer made it clear that the IDF was bombing so close to their post out of ‘tactical necessity†in other words the UN allowed the Hezbollah to build close to the post in order to use the post as a shield. As soon as did that the UN should pulled the observers from the post and indicated such action to the world. The fact that the UN kept observers there knowing they were at risk shows how screwed up the UN mission was.
Plus the IDF soldiers were not in Lebanon but traveling a border road along the fence line (look it up on google earth) One of the people that post in another forum I belong to was the employer of one of the reserve soldiers killed by the terrorists in the initial attack.
Coyote
5 years ago
Even much agree with this, Frank. Again, depending on the context in which you put it and how you propose to apply it.
Force in defence of the invasion of, or interference in one's own country is one thing. To compel a "regime" or or other policy change in another country, to me, is quite another thing. It's the current problem we have with the US Empire and much of the "Western interest" in the world. Those internal things have to be resolved by people themselves, in my view.
I mean, even the mighty mighty USSR was finally brought down. They found a way to do it themselves, without help from anyone. The result has been the creation of an openly capitalist society, but then my view is that they were already much a closet "State Capitalist" society in any case.
Otherwise, I am in complete agreement with you above. (And I've been around long enough to know that in any position one takes, the minute you say "no exceptions" one will almost certainly be created for you.)
But as a general and firmly held policy, for a truly independant nation building Canada... non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries.
Frank
5 years ago
Thanks Truman, perhaps I've just read too many books and sat wishing somebody would have done something.
Remember, I'm the guy that two years ago said that the problem in Bountiful should be addressed by a platoon of Princess Pats going in and doing an Abu G on Winston Blackmoor's ass.
Nana
5 years ago
Frank
You assume we are an independant country.
You compare now to a time, when because of the world wide devastation, Canada was far more influential than now. Keeping a large standing armed force is dangerous to the country doing it.
We now have a government that has completely capitulated to US foreign policy and is apeing them on domestic. With all due respect, look at the reality. Your dream is just that.
I certainly agree we should withdraw from
NATO, and why not NORAD while we're at it.
Frank
5 years ago
Coyote,
I've been pretty quiet on this subject for the last couple of years because I knew my usual allies were a little to the Right of me when it came to this subject. (Perhaps to the Right is wrong, more like where my socialist/humanist sympathies conflict with the reasons you guys are on the left. I'm not sure exactly)
I also realize I can't have any effect on the national debate so I'm just spouting as both an intellectual exercise and because I've decided I want to say how I think about this subject.
Yes. It has failed miserably. Therefore I would like the "new vision" to be one based on actually helping. Not on helping Cargill and Pioneer grain get a good price for surplus wheat or Bell Canada get a new cellphone contract. I would like a rich country like Canada say to hell with the past, we're going to do what's right for the right reasons. Not because we want to subsidize our own corporations or ingratiate ourselves with the Washington opinion leaders but because its the right thing to do for our fellow men and therefore its worth losing many of our own for the greater good it will bring.
Afghanistan is not a place we'd be imposing our will. Its a country that has been in turmoil for decades due to outside forces. I'm saying, let's build up our army, take over the entire mission, join with the Afghans to help them fend off the incursions from Pakistan, attack and disarm the Northern Alliance and then use our economic weight to provide a Marshall Plan for them. In the meantime we should also cut off relations with Pakistan and call for an economic embargo of that failed dictatorship.
Frank
5 years ago
Nana, I'm well aware that I'm just pissing against the wind or dreaming as you call it. But all I'm saying is we don't have to follow everyone else all the time. We can strike out on our own. We're rich enough.
First we acted under the thumb of the British, then under that of the USA and now many on the Left are saying we should come under the thumb of the U.N. instead.
I simply disagree with that. I don't want our hands to be tied by a debating club. The Afghans are in trouble and facing the prospect of a takeover by armed thugs or living under a corrupt government full of drug lords. We should help them, that's as simple as it gets.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
As I said, Frank, we should fight when threatened and attacked (both things, not just the threatening). But even then, war at its very best won't ever bring anything but death and destruction and the two world wars in the last century are proof of this.
Even if one acknowledges there are times when a country has to fight it would be dishonest to pretend that there's an easy calculus to the matter.
Do the 50 or 60 millions who died in the 1939 - 45 war count at all? In my view they do and all the 'good' that came out of ending Hitler's regime is hardly a balance against their blood. Taken into the account it'd have been better if the French and British had gotten off their asses when the Germans started to rearm and moved into the Ruhr... when war could have been prevented and Hitler had a chance of being dealt with by his own people.
Both the Afghan situation and the Iraq war are signal examples of this no matter what the outcome. The US had a chance to actually ameliorate the situation on the ground there after the Soviets pulled out and did nothing - less than nothing. Then they did the same thing after the 9/11 war. The fact that American administrations haven't the wit to learn from their mistakes doesn't mean we need to hold their hand and walk down the garden path together.
Get out! NOW! Not another Canadian should die in this futile attempt at democratization. Shut Hillier up, bring home the troops.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
War is not just the continuation of politics by other means, it's the failure of the human imagination. Power and envy, fear and revenge are such primitive aspects of human relations; to give them vent in armed conflict is an expression of failure - always. It contains no positive lessons for anyone except when it is avoided.
lynn
5 years ago
The first steps to the NAU, designed and forced on us by Tom d'Aquino's Council of Chief Exectives, the real, backroom government of Canada for the past 20 years, giving orders to politicians. Fiat lux.
Those words by Ed Deak really bear repeating because that is the real treachery here, the invisible web being woven to entrap our country and our miltitary forces into an inescapble NAU..where we become mere unquestioning lackeys placed to strategically serve the interests of the US military-industrial complex.
And that is the case with much of the humanitarian aid now as well...that it is being manipulated and co-opted by the backroom governments that Ed alludes to... and dominate our world. If wars are to be waged they should be waged against these backroom governments...expose them and their dark mercenary shadows. Problem is, our media is hiding out in the backroom along with them.
May be an assumption on my part but I don't think activist Harsha Walia (from the article/link on Canadian financial aid and NGO's) would disagree with Coyote's assertion of "the need or desirability for a fair and equitable "material humanitarian aid" system, as best can be secured, tailored and determined by the victims on the ground, not the outside handlers"...nor with the heart behind much of what Frank is saying.
As Walia writes ( I'm paraphrasing)his/her? "my intention is not to lessen the importance of humanitarian
aid but to point out in
this fractured world the political subtext that exists behind it"...to which I would add... the corporate subtext that exists behind it as well.
I would think that first we must address our own disingenuous, duplicitous governments...perhaps then something genuinely humanitarian may actually stand a chance.
haraldkann
5 years ago
To think Canadians are going to win over vicious fanatical religious zealot terrorists is childish.
Did the Russians win them over ? [B]who won these Afghans over...EVER ?
COUNT THE BODY BAGS...THE WASTE OF OUR CHILDRENS/SOLDIERS LIVES .
Get out and stay out til there is a general consensus amongst the WHOLE population that they need help.
You don't fight every battle you are invited to in life ,do you ? No you do not,only the ones that are threating your immediate security.
The hatred these Jihadists bear against the WEST is UNIMAGINABLE to most of us and when they GLADLY give up their lives to take yours and mine,well then we better think out a better solution.
I don't see any reason to be there except for the chance to do dirty work for the GOOD OLE BOYS who will reap the profits of war.
Frank
5 years ago
Alcibiades, yes the 50+ million deaths of WW2 count. But the alternative to their deaths was Britain making peace with Hitler after the fall of France. It was America and Britain agreeing to the Japanese takeover of the Dutch East Indies and Manchuria.
If Manchuria, the NEI and France, the Low Countries, the Danes and Poland had wanted to be parts of the German and Japanese Empires then sure, we should have signed the peace.
But they didn't. We shouldn't look the other way when people need us to help. Its one degree from being an accessory.
Yes it would have been better if the Brits and French had used force then and there, but the British and French couldn't see the future, they (and we) had just gone through a brutal war and I can understand why they accepted the logic that maybe they had been too harsh on the Germans at Versailles and wanted to look the other way and hope everything would work out somehow.
Fiat lux
5 years ago
The most important thing people should remember is that it is never people, or nations, who go to war, but rulers, ruling classes, religions and governments, who then persuade the suckers to follow them.
Today's so called "globalized economic competition" is nothing more than the lords sending their serfs on the scaling ladders to conquer the castle of the neighboring lord and claiming it "divine orders"
The only difference is that the shamans and priests have been replaced by the pseudo priesthood of economists, but the theories and the suckers who follow them remain the same. The shamans read the guts of sacrificial animals, or of people, to make their predictions, now the economists read the stockmarket reports derived from the spilled guts of sacrificed millions.
Also, professional soldiers, especially generals have always been the biggest turncoats in history, often changing sides on the battlefields and often several times. All armies and big business are survivig on secrecy, deceit, fraud, propaganda and lies, so it is no wonder they admire each other and that generals immdiately receive offers of directorships after they retire.
Ed Deak, WW2 vet.
haraldkann
5 years ago
Geez,are we talking like David Emerson and Belinda Stronach and Benedict Arnold ?
TURNCOATS in it for the GLORY of the WIN or the POWER of the VICTOR.
OR JUST THE MONEY ???
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Frank,
I acknowledged that the second war was a necessary evil. But I think those who today trumpet it as a world historical contest for freedom, truth and democracy are forgetful and naive and they often ignore the horrendous costs in both personnel and treasure - having been spent, I'd argue, in human blood without often accounting the contingency cost of a different course of action.
I'm not much for alternative historians like Niall Ferguson but his study of the First War – The Pity of War - is pretty convincing on that account.
All I'm saying is that our current commitment of men and arms in Afghanistan doesn't meet the extremely tough test that I think one must apply before 'sending' young men to die for an abstraction like a 'country.'
Good to see you back, Harald Kann, btw. Your acerbic wit has been missed on these pages.
Coyote
5 years ago
Amen.
Exactly, dear sister. ;-)
Frank
5 years ago
Alcibiades, WW2 is not the only instance of fighting a necessary evil.
Depending on your point of view you could say the French would have been wiped out by the Iroquois (in a very brutal manner) if it hadn't been for Louis sending a regiment of regulars. Or from the other side you could say the Huron wouldn't have been wiped out if they had remained as warlike as they had been.
I only use WW2 because its an example I assume most people are familiar with and because it was the last time Canada went to the wall to help foreigners. History abounds with other examples of force being necessary.
I know if Canada was attacked and we were being systematically brutalized that it would be nice if other nations didn't choose that moment to become pacifists. Because if the Taliban were running our country I don't want to hear that US NGO's are going among us providing eye drops for kids and that the US gov't has hopes that one day the Taliban will go easier on us.
In my view, using force to prevent the brutal treatment of foreign kids is no different, and no worse, than using force to prevent kids in Canada being the victims of the same treatment.
Nana
5 years ago
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/10/1355235
Tuesday, October 10th, 2006
Sarah Chayes on Life in Afghanistan After the Taliban and Why She Left NPR
A Sarah’s new book is "The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban."
but we were clearly working hand-in-hand with the Pakistani government, which had created the Taliban movement. And that was another piece of massive self-contradiction in our policy.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain.
SARAH CHAYES: Well, the Pakistani government has used, has manipulated religious extremism for its regional agenda for 30 years. They’ve been doing it in Kashmir and doing it in Afghanistan. And when the Soviets occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s, we provided a lot of money to the Afghan resistance, but we couldn’t -- we, the United States government -- but we couldn’t do it directly, because of the Cold War implications of that. So the U.S. government -- basically the CIA -- gave a lot of money to the Pakistani military intelligence agency, which then distributed it how it wanted to. And it distributed most of the money to the most extremist faction of the Afghan resistance, in the hope that this faction would then take power in Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew.
Well, guess what? Afghanistan turns out not to be a very ideological country. It’s really counterintuitive, but that’s what I have experienced in the five years that I’ve lived there, and they were having none of this guy, this very extremist faction leader. The rest of Afghanistan was not interested in him taking power. Pakistan, the Pakistani government continued to provide him with money. And so, there was four years of civil war, while the other factions were fighting him off, and he, with a lot of support from Pakistan, was still trying to take over.
After four years of civil war, the Pakistani government realized that this guy was not going to make it, and so they began creating the Taliban movement, creating this movement out of whole cloth. It didn’t rise up inside Afghanistan. It was created across the border in Pakistan and inserted into Afghanistan into the Kandahar region.
But again, it wasn’t a kind of global jihadi thing. The language was global jihadi language, but the objectives, the agenda was a regional agenda that has everything to do with Pakistan's relationship with India, frankly. So, to me, it was a little bit -- how to put it? -- illogical that the United States government would suddenly think that Pakistan on the drop of a hat would abandon a 30-year-old policy and suddenly join the anti-terror coalition in a real way. So what I have seen is that Pakistan has very cleverly -- the Pakistani government -- has very cleverly kept the United States happy by turning over an al-Qaeda operative every once in a while,
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Valid points Frank - little that I can disagree about, but, as far as I know no one from Afghanistan came to Canada in 2001 and asked us to intervene. Expat Cubans have been pleading with the US to throw Castro out since at least 1960. So that just can’t be a valid test, can it?
It's a tough test and we've got it very wrong this time.
I already said I'd have been more than willing to support intervention in Rwanda and I agree the international community doesn't seem to have the jam to go into Darfur to stop that genocide, or into Sierra Leone - I could go on. The perspective that makes Afghanistan the choice du jour has nothing to do with the plight of the people, in my view, and a lot to do with an agenda that isn’t, and shouldn’t be ours. These problems won’t be solved with guns – they’ll be solved by Afghans themselves – or not at all. We can help with that, but not by shooting people.
Even if we’d stuck our necks out in Rwanda, I’d have hoped to succeed without resorting to mass murder ourselves…something like we did in Bosnia and at Sarajevo.
And that is the key to the conundrum. For me at least.
Frank
5 years ago
I agree with murdock's assessment. I'm not asking that the mission be hunting down bin Laden and a declaration of war on the Taliban because they were giving shelter to a terrorist. My problem is with the Taliban itself and many other brutal regimes. In other words I'm not here to defend US policy. My argument is much more basic, to the point of simplistic.
As for Cuba, I would support Canada helping to defend Cuba from a US invasion. Again, assuming the Cubans themselves want to be defended. That's the key, its helping, not imposing.
For me, what makes Afghanistan the choice du jour is that the Taliban are already out of power, the people have already demonstrated their support for free elections and the fact we've alrady got a force over there. Walking away from a situation where if there was a will we could make a difference bothers me more than ignoring places where we can't help. NGO's and Cdn aid could help Afghans more if the Taliban aren't in power than the same aid could if they were. Security alone makes it worthwhile in my opinion.
In my view, just as with policing and jailing molestors, this is a situation where force can help. This is a situation where shooting a group until they cheer up and throw in the towel really can make a difference in a postitive way to providing security to Afghans.
Frank
5 years ago
Thanks for the link Nana, I agree that Pakistan is not an ally, they're the enemy. They've helped to create a force for "evil" and they continue to support that force for their own ends.
Gray
5 years ago
Who did Canada "mass murder" in Sarajevo & Bosnia?
jimtan
5 years ago
Frank,
"the people have already demonstrated their support for free elections "
You're talking a load of rubbish. Have you ever lived in a third world country? Why don't you travel to Afghanistan and see the reality. Or, do a little research about that country's history.
Frank
5 years ago
jimtan, I'll ignore your ignorant way of speaking to me and simply ask you to educate me.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
But Frank, you've turned the Cuba analogy on its head. It’s the Cuban expats who want the Castro government gone and they want US and/or other help to do it. Just like those who supported the US invasion of Afghanistan.
Seems to me the folks who have pushed for foreign involvement in Afghanistan were the expats (guys like Karzai) - therefore the parallel with the Florida Cubans who urge the US to assist them ousting Castro - for, from their point of view - humanitarian reasons.
I just think it is almost impossible to find honest information in a state like Afghanistan that is really more a collection of fiefdoms run by warlords. In fact, it has been argued that the Taliban are popular (among those who wouldn’t be unhappy with a return to the status quo ante) because they are not the warlords.
jimtan
5 years ago
Frank,
It is obviously impossible to educate you. You remind me of the neocons.
They aren't interested in the facts, or in the Afghanis as people. They just want to get confirmation of your world views.
The tragedy is that these aren't a bunch of rednecks gassing over their drinks. The American/British/Canadian people have put these people into positions of power. And, we (Americans/British/Canadians/Iraqis/Afghanis) pay the price.
Frank
5 years ago
Alcibiades, what does this line of argument have to do with me though? I didn't mention anything about expats. If you bring them up because I say its up to the Afghans themselves whether we stay or go, I wasn't talking about expats.
besides, Cuban expats are transparent. No one outside of the US takes them seriously. And if there weren't so many of them in a key state perhaps more Americans wouldn't either.
As for the Afghans, remember, the Taliban have been killing Afghans more than they've been killing westerners. The Taliban aren't winning hearts and minds by killing the people they want to rule. And the fact they have to kill them seems to imply that the Afghans are generally opposed to the Taliban.
I think we should turn on the warlords.
Frank
5 years ago
jimtan,
Perhaps but my teachers thought otherwise. Fortunately they at least gave it a go.
As for "obviously", I've been here almost since the beginning of this place and have never convinced anyone of anything so I'm pretty sure everyone else is just as difficult to "educate".
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Frank
You're saying, at least that's how I interpret it, that Canada ought to stick it out in Afghanistan because we 'hear' from certain Afghan spokespersons that the people in Afghanistan want:
a. democracy,
b. a free and educated population, and
c. do not want a return to the society they had under the Taliban.
And, since we’re already there – despite how badly things are and have been going, we should stick it out and try to make a positive difference
Right so far?
I'm saying, that perspective is fallacious - it's the same thing that was being said by Afghan expats who were pushing Bush to invade in the first place.
And it has its parallel (although at a different stage of evolution) in the 'push' of Cuban expats in the States to agitate and work for a change relative to Castro.
My sense is that we have no clear picture of what the Afghan people actually want for themselves. We didn't at the start of this disaster and we still don't and, in my view, that's not a prima fascia case for our military involvement.
Aid and civilian help and reconstruction, absolutely. Take all the bucks that are going up in smoke now - several billions of Canadian loonies and put them into actually helping, building and seeing to the Afghans needs. Stop turning that money into dead Canadians and dead Afghans.
Quit pretending that building roads is a priority for a country that's actually living in the 18th century and quit blowing up stuff.
My view, that will actually be some real help - along with tariff relaxation and an effort to buy Afghan goods instead of opium.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
should be prima 'facie', not 'fascia'. What was I thinking?
I honestly think we're making things worse not better - for the Afghans and for us as a nation.
jimtan
5 years ago
Alcibiades,
I salute you for your patience. I think that Frank just wants someone to talk to.
Frank
5 years ago
Not exactly. I'm not claiming I heard a spokesperson on tv or something whom I think represents the Afghans. I'm just going by my own sense of logic, such as it is.
I saw the turnout for the election, it was surprisingly high.
Afghans are free right now to follow Taliban rules like not letting their women learn to read etc but they seem to ignore many of them even though that makes them targets for persecution when the Taliban take over again.
The Afghans are helping to defend their territory against the Taliban and are indeed it seems willing to die in large numbers to prevent that occurrence.
The Canadians are taking casualties fighting the Taliban but I don't see the other NATO members under attack in their zones. The Taliban strength seems to be confined to just one area running back to the Pakistan border.
I think the above does provide a picture, not as clear as scientific polling of course but their actions have to count for something.
Not exactly. I'm saying we should take over the mission from NATO, greatly expand our army as required and work in close tandem with the Afghan gov't and people and do what they want done including the breaking of both the warlords and the Taliban. With a secure country development aid can flow and a real economy can begin to take shape. Whenever the Afghans think its time we packed our tents for Gagetown we do it.
Perhaps, but any similarity between me and Afghan expats advising Bush is purely coincidental. I could just as easily say letting the world go to hell in a handbasket while we live the high life back in the safety of Canada is a regurgitation of American attitudes towards the rest of the world during the earlier parts of this century.
How could we aid them if the Taliban were in power? If we built schools for girls nobody would be stupid enough to send their daughters there for example. The only beneficiary of aid to a Taliban-controlled Afghansistan would be the Taliban.
Oh its worse for us for sure. We would have saved the billions to spend at home and our soldiers wouldn't be dying. But I think things are much better for the Afghans for although its pretty bad now, I think it was worse under the Taliban.
Frank
5 years ago
jimtan, I'm sorry you feel the need to belittle me because I disagree with you. Good luck eventually becoming a member of a community.
jimtan
5 years ago
Frank,
I hope you don't mind if I don't join your community. I've got things to do.
Frank
5 years ago
Apparently not
impudent lowlife
5 years ago
Imposing democracy works to bring about democracy - an institution that has taken centuries to develop in other parts of the world? Call me pessimistic but I don't think it's going to work. Imposing our "Western" value systems on others?
I suppose in a idealistic sense the above are decent objectives, but does Canada need to engage in "search & destroy" missions against the Taliban in order to reach those objectives? I don't think so. Negotiate and include the Taliban in Afghanistan as they are part of Afghanistan or get rid of the facade of decency and wipe them out - every man, woman and child. Nits make lice.
Frank
5 years ago
I don't believe democracy is being imposed on the Afghans. Warlordism and religous fundamentalism certainly which is what Canada should be fighting against.
And its the Taliban, a movement with roots outside the country, that are killing Afghans in an attempt to impose their will through intimidation.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Frank,
I agree that 'democracy' is not being imposed on the Afghans - in fact, I think the whole project is a complete failure and democracy can 'never' be imposed on anyone.
Several points:
1. Nothing I've seen in the press, apart from some early reports (more than 18 months old) and primarily restricted to the Kabul area, indicates that there has been any success in creating a sustainable economic base for the Afghan people;
2. In the rest of the country, particularly in the south, the Taliban appears to have full sway to do pretty much what they want. All the current reports are negative in the extreme - reference the pessimistic report by the British NATO commander posted up thread;
3. In the area of opium production it would seem from all accounts that things are measurably worse now than when the Taliban were in power;
4. I think we have absolutely no context for evaluating 'what' the Afghan people actually want. If I was to guess, and it's no more than that, I think they'd like some stability and we certainly haven't delivered it;
5. I see no indications that Canada's troops are being welcomed with open arms; in fact, quite the contrary seems to be the case;
6. Where do I find data about how 'willing' Afghan soldiers are to fight and die for whatever it is we say we're fighting for?
7. The fact that many of the early Taliban members morphed out of the mujahadeen (who were ‘freedom fighters’ remember) puts the lie to your contention that the movement has roots outside the country;
8. I can't see that the tactics of the Americans - who used the warlords as their proxies from the start to avoid actually fighting on the ground - have established any kind of a precedent upon which Canada could function to approach the problem differently, no matter how many boots we put in on the ground;
9. I agree religious fundamentalism is a terrible thing but I have no confidence that gun barrels ever do anything except harden the resolve of the fundamentalists - I think the recent report of the combined intelligence capacity of the US government about the growth and spread of terrorism since the beginning of the current Iraq war is proof positive of my point of view.
In conclusion, I can see little evidence and less logic for continuing in our present course.
I think sending in doctors and aid and trying to work with Afghan groups at reconstruction is the only sensible target for our dollars. Building roads in the wilderness when none of the people have cars is futile and wrong-headed.
Although I respect the ideas behind what you're saying, I can see no reason to think that you've not, as George Bush would put it, ‘misunderestimated’ the situation. One small aside, I read several reports of late that, a year after the devastating earthquake which hit Pakistan a year ago, many of its victims are still living in the open air in tents. There is so much more that we could be doing to actually help people in need without subjecting our soldiers to mortal danger from various kinds of gunshots and explosions in support of a project the military commander calls ‘killing scumbags’. Our motives are confused, our direction and leadership are non-existent, we don’t speak the language and we know little or nothing of the indigenous culture. A recipe for a disaster cake, in my view – and that’s exactly what we’re baking.
Frank
5 years ago
Alcibiades,
1. The economy of Afghanistan has not and will not perform positively as long as there's a war on or they're controlled by warlords and the Taliban. It wasn't working prior to 2001 and its not working now. If we were fighting a war on Cdn soil our economy would be a failure too.
2. The Taliban don't seem to be strong anywhere except in the south and running up to the Pakistan border. If they had any real strength they would easily be able to defeat the small contingents they're fighting against. The reason NATO is pessimistic, is because they know they're going to lose. All the NATO troops in Afghanistan are on a time-limit, the Taliban know they're going to leave eventually. If I was a Taliban strategist I would say all we need to do is run up casualties on the current forces and no one will want to replace them.
3. Opium production is a sympton of the wider economic problem.
4. We haven't delivered it only because the Taliban are fighting us. If the Afghans don't want us to fight the Taliban they should tell us that. The Taliban could have ran in the election and won if they have support.
5. How so? I haven't read anything about Afghans demanding Canadians go home.
6. The CBC reported that over 800 Afghan security force people have been killed so far. The fact that they're fighting the Taliban and not us has to mean something.
7. Not at all. You should read Nana's link. Pakistan has been very much involved with the Taliban.
8. We don't have to follow the US or mimic its strategy of staying allied with the warlords. That was the point I was making early on about forging our own path independently. If we had enough people on the ground we could attack them, again, if there was popular support for that.
9. So you think that if the Taliban hadn't been removed that the Afghan people would be better off? The Taliban had their chance at governing. They were terrible, brutal people with no regard for human rights. I don't see how Canada would be making life better for Afghans by letting them impose themselves on Afghans again.
Where would we find doctors willing to go into a country where they could be killed by the Taliban for inadvertently breaking some rule and where they would be acting in support of a violent regime? We can't even keep all our doctors in Canada without some of them complaining they're being oppressed.
There was no invasion of Afghanistan prior to 2001 and yet I didn't see Canada doing much anywhere. Sure it would be nice if Canada spent billions upon billions of untied aid money in poor countries every year and those countries were then raised out of poverty. But we don't. How many billions would it take to make a difference? Whatever it is we haven't spent it even though no one has been stopping us from doing so.
If we weren't now spending the money in Afghanistan we would have spent it on debt repayment.
murdock
5 years ago
Alcibiades wrote:
Yes, now how to do just that when MSF, the only major NGO that does exactly that has left the region and will not go back under the current conditions?
The truth of what we are there to do should become abundantly obvious considering we are 'building' roads. If it is not to 'take-over our way' --> then what?
Truman Green
5 years ago
New reports out of Lancet that 655,000 Iraqis might have died since the US invasion--20 times more than Bush has claimed. Looks like the methodology is dependable--cluster and random sampling of 1800 families.
655,000 MORE than would have died if the US had not invaded.
I wonder what the real Afghanistan figures are.
Nana
5 years ago
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ANN20061009&articleId=3429
There is no salvaging this operation. The main players, Britain and the US, have destroyed democracy at home and here in Canada the laws are there, they just haven't been used yet. The well is poisoned.
We must pull out...look what we're contributing to.
Frank
5 years ago
And you'd feel okay about leaving the Afghans behind to face the Taliban again?
Its the equivalent of transferring your daughter to a school in Bountiful to learn respect.
We should do better, not abandon the helpless to living in terror.
Coyote
5 years ago
Truman,
Just caught the CBC news, which carried a report of a study done by a Columbia U group, which has been doing these kinds of studies for 15 years, on a sample of 12000 Iraqis selected across the whole of Iraq, confirms a similar figure of Iraqi deaths. The spokesman for this study said that they know their figure is accurate withing a small inaccuracy percentile, of in excess of 500,000 Iraqi civilians (half million" killed since the US invasion.
The Bush regime is a lying gangster regime, which in their entirety need to stand trial for war crimes.
(And just as an aside, alongside the recent small nuclear test of North Korea, the US Empire and its nuclear arsenal, alongside its bellicose rogue state role in the world, should be of far greater concern to us. I mean, can you imagine what we would all be thinking if it was North Korea going around the world right now, like this rampaging US Empire?)
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Frank,
I think things were pretty 'stable' before 2001. Awful, but stable...in a kid of Stalinist way. In the initial months after the original takeover there were signs of improvement but the moment the Americans reneged on their promises and dumped the promised measures and funding that quickly died. American business doesn't want to compete with cheap Canadian softwood, let alone textiles from Afghanistan. We're simply not able to do anything except try fruitlessly to kill the guys we see as the black hats. We don’t speak the language, understand the religion or the tribal background.
Major Trevor Green got an axe in the scull at a community meeting. Sound like a welcoming committee to you?
And how many innocent civilians have 'we' blown away?
I don't deny there is lots of cross-border stuff going on. It's endemic to the area - maps and borders don't mean a thing to the tribal peoples who've lived in these lands for millennia.
Show me the evidence that there is popular support for our presence there. I'm sick and tired of hearing Harper, Peter the prostrate and Rick Hillier tell us that - it doesn't wash and things are getting worse not better. Why would we 'want' to take over a mess created by the US with leadership like we have?
There's no doubt the Taliban are a bunch of thugs but a moment ago you said they weren't indigenous. I think they are and they aren't much different from the thugs who took over in Iran a couple of decades ago. We didn't volunteer to straighten them out.
Do you honestly think the Harper government is going to increase untied aid to .07% of GDP? Of course not. He's willing to spend the bucks on war because he thinks it endears him to a certain segment of his fundamentalist base - just like Bush - and he could care less about the fate of the Afghan people.
I agree that delivering aid to the region is much more difficult now than it would have been if the choices in 2001 had been different. Reality sucks! Pretending we're doing anything positive there now is just not on, in my view.
Harper is further using defence spending and un-tendered contracts of supply to make his connections with industry and commerce as tight as possible before the next election.
We need to get out now because things are only going to get worse and we shouldn't be tarred with this brush. If we have any hope of a real independent foreign policy, taking the US's chair at this table is not the way to go.
I suspect you're right about what Harper would do with the money if it weren't being burned in Afghanistan. At least, though, we wouldn't be killing young Canadians into the bargain that way.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
By the way, Frank, I'm in complete agreement that we should open our doors as wide as possible to any Afghans who want to leave and come to Canada. I think you suggested that a while back and it's a very good idea.
Maybe we could get pee wee to adopt it as a plank in his program.
Frank
5 years ago
But this was my point. This isn't our mission nor is it the right mission. My point was Canada needs to follow its own path, do the right thing based on a policy of human rights. The way for us to do that is to take over the mission completely, no one would complain about not having to go to Afghanistan. Once it was just us we could turn on the criminal elements calling themselves our allies such as the Northern Alliance.
I can't, I already said I'm basing my opinion on my own logic of what I read.
Leadership aside (Harper is not going to do what I want), because fixing a mess is the right thing to do, much better than ignoring it.
No I didn't. I said that much of their roots are in Pakistan. I didn't say there weren't Taliban that were Afghani. And earlier I said that Taliban support seems limited to one ethnic group inside the country.
I don't see why Canada shouldn't help the helpless instead of the comfortable. this would mean being activist though, not isolationist. I think Canada is sufficiently grown up that we can act independently.
No, but I would. Do you think Harper would adopt any policy of mine? No. This is my policy, not Harper's.
Like most Canadians. The Liberals put us there and Harper keeps us there not to win (which is what I want) but to show the flag and raise our profile among our allies. My idea is the opposite, it means we selflessly spend our own treasure and blood to help strangers.
Thanks
BC Dude
5 years ago
impudent lowlife never mind democracy in other countries right now in Canada and especially in B.C., which I think is the proving grounds for the rest of Canada. Our rights in British Columbia are being stripped away by this Criminal (03 legislature raids) British Columbia liberal party.
Do you call the CanWest media http://www.ketupa.net/asper1.htmconglomerate a free Democratic newspaper the Vancouver Sun, the Vancouver Province, Global television?
Have you read or seen anything about the sellout of our B.C. Hydro http://hydrofactsbc.ca/private_power.html
http://www.republic-news.org/links.html
I spent three years in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and we were always known as Great Peacekeepers around the world!
Even the Americans at that time in Germany wore the Canadian flag as the Americans were looked down on, Why?
But now because Harper is Bush's little bum buddy who will eventually go down with Bush. We are fighting a (USA)aggressive war for what? Don't tell me it's to free the people from the Taliban.
It is for the big oil corporations so they can put a pipeline through the country of Afghanistan and also for the profit of big military corporations and their profits are 25%+!
Harper (Warmonger) the result of the Fraser Institute's 30 years of nurturing/programming Harper "I Robot"! Googal Fraser Institute 30 years harper! Scary
A very Passionate Free Canadian who wants to see all these evildoers brought forward on war crimes against humanity in The World Court in The Hague for all the world to see!
Truman Green
5 years ago
Frank, you admitted that the Canadian effort isn't really a humanitarian effort, but you've spent a day or so describing it as though it is.
I find this to be a fatal contradiction in your argument.
And why would you think that we could "take over the mission completely?"
Afghanistan to a great extent is a warrior nation. Most of the reistance fighters are doing it as a way of life and as a means of employment. Canada only has an entire military force of 70,000 or so, few of which are combatant troops.
The Afghan resistance would just kill all of our soldiers, if we took the whole thing over.
I think you're being silly now, Frank.
Nana
5 years ago
Frank
I repeat, we are not an independant country and we are being stealthfuly being integrated into a North American Union.
So could we pay attention to what is happening now?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=HAL20061002&articleId=3363
The NDP leadership supports remaining in Afghanistan while the membership voted for "troops out"....another reason for me to doubt NDP leadership. Meanwhile, nobody is saying boo about Canada joining the armada assembling in the Persian Gulf.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
I would too Frank, increase aid w/out strings and I'm all for helping but this is an Afghan problem and we have neither the smarts, the experience, the trained personnel, the leadership, the linguists nor the perseverence to tackle the whole ball of wax as you suggest.
I'm sure the rest of NATO would be happy to pull out and leave this Gordian knot for us to unwind, but it's just not on. The best way we can help is to get our troops out now before our deluded ideas of who are friends and what constitutes nation building ruins our reputation and our chance of one day using that Canadian idealism in a better project.
Cuba has the right idea. Their doctors, engineers and other experts are all over the world actually contributing to a better world and not killing people.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Yes, Nana and even though Harper went down to speak in the US, and basically ridiculed Canada to the Americans, he was still voted into power. Any sensible person would have recognized that such a performance should have disqualified him from ever holding public office in Canada. But, no...instead his reward was becoming Prime Minister.
There's probably just too many idiots around to change much of anything.
Look at Frank's disgusting performance here. And he's smart!
Frank
5 years ago
Nana, I was actually just addressing the topic. Happy to discuss other things but there isn't a forum for "other things" on the Tyee. And yes my view assumes we're still independent.
Truman,
Actually 5 days. I haven't admitted the Canadian effort isn't humanitarian. I've said the objective isn't. But we are performing a humanitarian service in the meantime.
If we expanded our armed forces to the size it was when we were defending Europeans then yes we could. As you may recall that was intrinsic to my argument.
Which is why they can be defeated. Afghans haven't demonstrated any love for the Taliban.
Not at all, I was asking people to think in terms of what would actually be best for the Afghans. The current situation? Few would agree. The return of the Taliban? Most would disagree. So I offered another option. One that would cost us but would be the right thing to do. I didn't disagree with Nana when she said I was dreaming, nor am I under any illusions that Canadians would say great idea and do it.
Its more like if you really believe in human rights then this is what we need to do. Half-measures stroke our own egos but don't help.
murdock
5 years ago
Frank, his compassion showing brightly on his sleeve:
feel okay? not really, but the prospect of how I feel about killing more on both sides (Canadian youth 'tricked' into military adventure service and any more Afgani persons) is more sickening to me. We cannot re-build anything with a gun, it makes a terrible shovel and cannot hammer a nail very well either.
NO it is not. Not everyone in Bountiful is part of the organization, indeed the insiders of that group would not accept any new outsider within the fold anyway.
agreed we should do better, in many places. Sadly we cannot 'do it' all alone...we must choose our battles carefully, we must place our efforts in such actions all together, completely co-ordinated (much much more than we are now). All policies must also be 'adjusted' to work towards a 'building' model, not a 'destruction' model.
We cannot expect our method of 'democracy' or 'people rule' to be acceptable everywhere, this is akin to taking on a religious crusade, demanding that those whom we 'conquer' to take on the democracy methods we decide for them.
better would be, in this case, to withdraw to an easily defensible region (realistically this is nowhere in Afghanistan, but as you demand this I shall give the vision) then pour intensive and steady efforts into that region, aid etc. This will take a decade or more to create the 'stability' needed. Over time the 'defence' of this region will fall more and more on the locals, but ideally you create a trade region, where those areas around it WANT the stability to continue, and will actively support it.
We are doing nothing of the sort, instead we are running about like chickens (waiting for our) with our heads cut off, proceeding to piss off more and more of the locals, essentially driving them into the waiting arms of the Taliban.
Just like the Soviets did, just like the Victorian British did, just like the Alexandrian Greeks did...
Frank
5 years ago
Actually I agree Cuba helps other people. But even Cuba sent troops to Angola to prevent people like Joseph Savimbi (sp?) and his South African allies from turning the country over to Gulf Oil.
Frank
5 years ago
murdock, we didn't impose our system on Holland. You remove the elephant in the room and then people can choose their own system.
You may not be able to build a society with a gun but if we didn't shot the Germans first there wasn't going to be any rebuilding later.
Then we should do that. I already agreed with this a couple of days ago.
Colin
5 years ago
Nana wrote:
A large standing army? We can barely maintain 2,500 troops in the field for any length of time! In fact the Toronto Police force has more cops than we have Combats Arms troops.
We were far more influential because approx 1 million people out of roughly 11 million donned uniforms and fought a long bloody struggle. That is what earned us a place at the table. Not to mention Korea and our commitment to NATO which was far greater than any of our commitments to UN peacekeeping missions. For the last 20 years we have been riding the coattails of our parents generation sacrifices, if you want to have a say in the world then need to make significant efforts both in military and foreign policy/aid.
Also if you want to fully independent of the US and NATO, then you better expect to pay for more of a military and have national service, because we won’t be getting their help anymore.
Coyote
Since you finally declared yourself a communist (be careful someone might trap you and stick you into a museum!) I think I will call you ComCoy as the communist always loved to shorten names of their organizations to this style.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
I dunno Frank, the whole Holland analogue is pretty facile. I know the Dutch appreciate Canadians and there's no question we did take over a difficult and forgotten front at the penultimate moment during the final push in 1945. But the idea of this being a huge Canadian humanitarian effort is largely ex post facto gloss on a performance that wasn't very much different from what we'd done in Sicily, Italy, Northern France and Belgium. So I wouldn't put too much stock on that as an precedent for current actions.
I think Canada should be the one nation that isn't afraid of getting into Africa in a big way - the situation there is and always has been far more dire than it is in Afghanistan.
Why try to pick up the pieces for a tribal society that doesn't want us, in a situation created and mucked up horrendously by others when there are literally dozens of nations in Africa where we could step in right now with the same billions we're wasting on this ill-fated military adventure? And probably risk more lives among Canadian volunteers from malaria than we're losing to IEDs now. But in the end I think we'd have achieved something - just as Cuba did in Angola - a not small element in the eventual defeat of Apartheid.
If we must stay – and I hope we won’t – Murdock’s idea of pulling back the perimeter and concentrating one’s efforts around Kabul makes much more sense than the current plan. If it works it’ll be at least a generation down the road and probably longer and even so, much of the effort will be co-opted by profiteers and the black market into the bargain.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Colin,
I'd be happy to see commies in museums the same day they make an exhibits of some far more dangerous varieties of beasts - neo cons and religious fundamentalists of all stripes.
Until then, we need all the critics we can get.
Frank
5 years ago
Actually I'd be fine with us doing a lot more in Africa. We've had 60 years and it would be nice if we did more anywhere.
Central Asia is not the place I would have picked if I had my druthers being as its pretty much the worst spot on the globe geographically for Canada to get to or get out of.
As I said early on in this discussion, if we had been acting up to now such as defending the Nicaraguans from the Contras or the Chileans from Pinochet etc I wouldn't be asking why we never really help anybody. After all we can't help everyone.
As for Holland, its just an example of a place we took over but didn't force a system on anyone. Unlike the others (Sicily etc) we were the dominant power in Holland.
Colin, NATO was something we did to defend Europe from the Soviets. That's over. Many people inside NATO are themselves trying to think of a raison d'etre, its not just me.
Canada wouldn't need conscription if we left NATO. Even though I would support that. We still have our oceans surrounding us so Nigeria won't be invading tomorrow if we decide to end our alliance with Luxemburg.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Did you say, "...defending Nicaraqua from the contras, and Chile from Pinochet," Frank?
You realize we'd have had to go to war against the American administration and the CIA to do that I hope.
The same groups that are inventing these fake Iraqi and Afghanistan wars against terrorism. And the analogy's a lot more than specious. Actually Viet Nam's a better fit, but it's so obvious that people like to reject it. But I heard every single one of your arguments all through the sixties.
Rescue a beseiged people from the Viet Cong gangsters who want to impose a brutal regime.
It's the same rationale regarding Afghanistan.
Only the names have changed.
Mind if I think you're just kidding, Frank?
Frank
5 years ago
Truman, are you saying we should only help people when the Americans agree? What if the US is the country they need help against?
The US itself wasn't invading Nicaragua or Chile. If we had assisted those nations we would have either defeated the Contras and Pinochet or the US would have had to openly assist butchers.
Since we and the Euros have been completely powerless as part of NATO to prevent US attacks on other countries why bother? Why not change our alliances so that we don't have to hold the US's coat while they bully someone?
Nana
5 years ago
Frank I'd love to change our aliances. I dream about it all the time. We do have to get rid of the shills in all parties who pose as our elected leaders though.
Truman Here's something you'll enjoy.
http://www.rense.com/general73/whyd.htm
Coyote
5 years ago
Colin,
Actually, I declared that I had been a Communist, a long time ago now, and more than once here.
Currently, and for many years now, I have been my own man-, my own kind of social revolutionary.
On the other hand, you can call me what you please. :-) Your opinion of me is not a great issue that is likely to disrupt my sleep.
It seems strange to be observing Frank here, effectively, coming around to supporting the Harpo war on behalf of The Empire. I'm actually having difficulty taking him seriously-, and am more inclined to assume that he is playing some kind of a Devil's advocate.
The Second world war is long now history. And, of course, it is hard now to argue against the sentimentality that this war was actually fought in defence of the British Empire's insecurity that Germany might succeed in militarily uniting Europe under its hegemony-, and not on behalf of the holocaust occurring to European Jewry. Or on the other side, the left as well, again did not enter into the war even in defence of European Jewry as an objective, to the extent they even knew of their plight. Communists and other left-wingers marched more to Europe to defend the Stalinist Socialist Motherland, the "birthplace of the revolution."
All were there for a European cause, reflecting North American continental "sentiment" at the time.
From this vantage point in history though, it is first necessary to look at the second world war more dispassionately and objectively than we have been allowed or allowed ourselves to here. The fact is, had we not entered the war, or the Amerikans, we don't really know what the outcome would have been over the long pull of history. We do not know, in fact, how the people of Europe would have in the end fared or dealt with Nazi Germany.
Though we do know that Fascist Spain, which survived the Second Great War victorious has evolved into a more benign and conventional "bourgeoise Monarchist democracy", not better nor worse than we ourselves. And I suspect Europe would have likely resolved itself in a not dissimilar outcome . It is all speculation however, for thee and me.
On the other hand though, the USSR, the Stalinist home of that great Bolshevik Revolution, which also emerged victorious over Nazi Germany, evolved as well not dissimilarly to Fascist Spain, into again, a not entirely dissimilar "capitalist democracy".
At which point I can hear Fait Lux insisting that this is because, really, the second great war, when all the propaganda, sentimentality, misplaced loyalties and bullshitt are stripped away, was again like the First Great War, but an intra-capitalist war of rivaly, for supremacy in that global system. Britain and France had all the Empire, and Germany wanted one of its own. Lebensraum. With which I have to agree-, the old communist and the older anti-communist. :-)
Russia, as we should by now know, regardless of intentions and who knew or did not know what, was preoccupied with building its own peculiar brand of State Capitalism, even if it called it Socialism.
From which war Amerika, given the perversity of such largely intra-imperialist conflicts and of the world system that spawned it, actually emerged the ultimate victor, over all the old imperial powers of Europe. Which consequence we are now living with, and I suspect, with a textural and content feel that is not a whole lot different than we might have expected if any one of the other Fascist/Communist or Great Britain competing blocs, all leading to capitalism in the postwar anyway, had emerged the victor. One or another of them would be playing this exact same role within the global capitalist system.
continued next post...
Coyote
5 years ago
from previous post...
Frank is wrong, in my view. It is really that simple. And either he is playing the Devil's Advocate with our heads, or he is just that. Wrong.
Certainly it is clear that his closest allies here are only such as Colin and IAMC, which I know he is not, but nonetheless share his position in support of the humanitarian war that is, to their claim, Afghanistan. (Politics and strange bedfellows, eh. :-)
It does not matter whether the Taliban are nice chaps or not, Frank. Neither are the US Neocon Fundamentalists or is our own Bootlick Conservative State. The point is, the Taliban were there with the Afghanis, and you know they include many, many Afghanis, as well as other Arabic tribal and national groups of the region. They were there with the Afghanis at the defeat of the then become imperialist, USSR.
For which reason, they have earned a historical place in that society, whether we agree with them or not, like them or not. Now that they have defeated the Russians, and when they in time beat the US and us, they are the Afghanis problem to deal with.
I am my brothers and sisters keeper alright. But it is also a matter of what you have a right to expect of me and what you must do for yourself.
And I remember intervening on behalf of a woman who was being dragged off the bus by her husband-, by her hair, and screaming at the top of her lungs she was. Anyway, the upshot of it was, between the bus and their home, a short distance away, they both turned on me, and punished me quite visciously-, for not minding my own fuking business.
And the global relationship between and within nation communities and regions is not a whole hell of a lot different, I don't think. When the kicking and screaming has died down, offer you help in any way you realistically can, but you are probably better not to intervene until then, until the fighting has stopped.
You may not like the way a society treats its women and girls, but be goddamn careful going there. These women are not nearly so helpless left on their own as you might think. And a period of peace, and a recovery of economic sustainability is more likely to strengthen their hand and mellow their men, than an outsider going in there and attempting to throw his/her weight around, and doing a whole bunch of sanctimoious preaching. (As well as likely killing a whole bunch of their people in the process.)
Stay home. Send cash.
Frank
5 years ago
So why oppose the American "Empire" and their arms buildup and their takeover of various countries and territories if it'll all work out in the end?
If we are to simply mind our own business then why bother turning on the news at all? Why bother sending aid to anyone if they're just going through a necessary phase of development?
If America is the problem with the world, as many here have said over the years, then isn't the answer so what, this too shall pass?
So what if kids in Nicaragua had their arms chopped off, they'll work it out? The thing is I disagree.
I don't think WW2 was a waste of time and we should have just let the nazis occupy Europe because in the end things would be okay. Nor do I think Stalin should have been allowed to run unopposed through Europe because in the end the Soviet policies would have softened. Fascist and Stalinist history would have been different in my opinion if they hadn't been contained.
Not ever standing up against people who want to take over and brutalize other people, whether it be nazis, stalinists, mongols, romans or taliban is a recipe for disaster.
What we wish for ourselves is what we should wish for other people. Freedom to make their own decisions in the abscence of intimidation and coercion.
I don't agree that we shouldn't care that the Taliban are supported by Pakistan and that we should just leave and deal with the winner when the Taliban and Afghans are finished fighting each other.
Nor do I understand why we would oppose the US and not the Taliban. Either you should oppose both (as I do) or neither. But opposing only one creates an inconsistency in your arguments.
Did anyone here oppose Apartheid? If you thought Apartheid was simply part of the necessary development of South Africa and they'd work it out in the end then I guess there was no need for sanctions.
And if you thought what was happening in South Africa was the business of South Africans and we had no business saying boo about it, then I guess there was no reason there for sanctions either.
Well, I supported sanctions against South Africa. And further, I know why I did. When people are being coerced or intimidated or brutalized and they don't have a democratic outlet then the gov't ruling them is, in my view, illegitimate.
Illegitimate governments should be overthrown by the rest of humanity. When an election goes a different way than I think it should, such as Violetta Chammorra (sp?) winning over Daniel Ortega I accept the result because although I had issues with the process and US advertising etc, the people did have a vote and they chose.
Franco and Pinochet and many others were in power through the use of force. Therefore they were illegitimate governments regardless of how long they remained in power.
When the Taliban actually win a fair election in Afghanistan they will have legitimacy. Until then, the Afghans have a right to oppose them with force and as long as the Afghans want outside help we have, in my view, a moral duty to provide it.
murdock
5 years ago
Frank,
The Taliban, or even the supposed Islamo-fascists cannot be compared to the 3rd Reich command economy of Germany in the 1933-45 period. No way can such a thing be compared.
The closest comparison to such a thing is with Pakistan, since it from their border regions that the Talib's come. Given your way of thinking Pakistan should be the target of the aggression. Clearly it cannot be, since to do that would break at least 2-3 agreements we have with them.
As much as your professed desire to 'make life better' for those outside of Khabul, I think you are living in a fools paradise, Afghanistan is the ultimate 'march' region - it will stay that way due to the extremely mountainous nature of the area, this cannot be changed (other than using our 'ultimate' weapons) by any diplomatic art. It must be worked with, Pakistan is doing just that - you may not like their method, but then few would...
Alcibiades
5 years ago
I still think the Holland analogy is inapt. We didn't take it over, we drove out the foreign invaders who had occupied it. If the Taliban are the successors to the mujahadeen then they can't, under any construction, be seen as foreigners - however much we dislike them so I think the analogy fails.
Let's get the troops out of Afghanistan and send volunteers into Africa. Let's increase our aid and spend it in places where the indigenous folks aren't trying to blow up Canadians - for whatever reason.
Let's pick places to direct our help and our aid where we aren't following in the Americans' footsteps. I certainly agree we can do more and do it more effectively - just not in Afghanistan. There are places where we will be appreciated, why stay where we're not!
Just a thought.
Frank
5 years ago
Pakistan is arming people who can't get elected and sending them back in to take over the country. Why is that okay with those of you opposed to Canada's intervention?
I've already said on here the other day that we should impose sanctions on Pakistan and break off relations.
If I was comparing the Afghan economy with the German economy of 1945, sure. But I'm not. I simply said that Holland couldn't be rebuilt as long as the German army stood in it, I don't see any reason why that statement would be in error.
murdock
5 years ago
Frank, contradicting his entire argument:
then:
So if we provide the military muscle, like some sort of latter-day mercenaries, then 'that' government is 'duly' elected?
Is this really what you are saying?
Your argument totally falls to pieces in the face of such a statement as:
"...in power through the use of force. Therefore they were illegitimate governments regardless of how long they remained in power."
The 'governance' you would have our young people DIE for is not any more legitimate than the Taliban! This is where the expatriot argument came from earlier in this thread.
Frank, Canada has no place in the entire region, we went there because the US desperately needed a 'partner' to convince the UK. The military brass, so desperately need a 'raison d'etre' that they managed to convince Cretien to go. I also noted that Cretien was the 'emissary' that a Montreal Law-firm sent to Pakistan and Uzbekistan to 'complete' certain contracts, just after he was no longer PM. I would say that the pay-off for Canadian blood was handsome indeed and that we, the great unwashed, will never ever know what it was that 40+ men had to pay the ultimate sacrifice for.
I have said this elsewhere, but I think it needs saying again.
Frank, I highly recommend you read: The Soverign Individual.
http://www.amazon.com/SOVEREIGN-INDIVIDUAL-MASTERING-TRANSITION-INFORMATION/dp/0684832720
It is dated now, but the underlying essay regarding the rate of return to the use of force I found enlightening, it points the way to a different future, sadly, like all transformations, there will be a time of chaos -> according to them we are in it now.
Frank
5 years ago
Alcibiades, the Afghan fighters who drove out the Soviets did it with US assistance. That doesn't mean the US has a right to rule Afghanistan.
Nor would Canada have the right to rule Afghanistan if we drove out the taliban.
The Taliban include non-Afghan people. Foreign fighters that fought the Soviets doesn't give them the right to rule Afghans.
carlos
5 years ago
Afghanistan is the key to oil profits.
Have a look at:
globalresearch.ca/articles/TAL111A.html
It's all about money and power.
Frank
5 years ago
murdock, go back and read what I said over. I made no such contradiction. The current Afghan gov't is elected.
murdock
5 years ago
Frank posted:
elected by whom? the 20,000 in Khabul? the few so 'enfranchised' by having 'permission' to attend the polls?
The election you are speaking of was a total FARCE! It was not supervised by any other 'nations' than the US-UK, moreover my sources (whom have faught in the Kandehar region) say that no ballots were available outside of a 50km radius of Khabul. So your 'election' is like having a few dozen polling stations around parliament hill in Ottawa or the Hull area, then as long as you can travel to the 'center' of power you get a say...otherwise forget it.
So your 'elected' government is the HAND PICKED one by US-UK military authorities, the same as the Seoul one from the 1950's was French or from the 1970's was US. Stop trying to use the 'elected' crap as anything more that this.
Frank
5 years ago
You're in error. Millions of Afghans voted. The turnout was excellent.
Many of the candidates were ex-mujahideen too.
So that election means that the current Afghan gov't is about a million times more legitimate than the Pakistan-supported Taliban who are trying to overthrow them.
Coyote
5 years ago
You can't have a fair and democratic election conducted under conditions of foreign occupation and war, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. That's a process under unreasonable duress.
Frank
5 years ago
I agree that the conditions could have been better. But with the Taliban threatening to kill anyone and everyone involved I don't see how an election could have been held there under any other circumstances.
Coyote
5 years ago
On this one I agree with Murdoch, Frank. You are all over the map. You want your cake for Canadian participation in the US led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and eat it too.
There is more to the legitimacy of a regime, especially in its early going, as in Iran, which now has a rough kind of evolving democracy, at least near as legitimate as ours, especially coming out of a defensive war against a foreign invasion as Afghanistan was and is. You really are stretching your credibility, Frank. Your positions are sliding into ever more contradiction with each other.
Frank
5 years ago
Coyote, I think my position is pretty simple and its simplicity makes it pretty hard to contradict myself. I think its more the case that you guys are ascribing to me views I don't hold simply because there are views on this subject you disagree with and you assume I must hold them since I disagree too.
Coyote
5 years ago
Frank, as I would oppose any regime or state engaged in a foreign military invasion and occupation.
If you can't see the difference between the Arabic Taliban, having successfully conducted a war of resistance against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, and the US invasion, totally from outside the entire Middle East region, which has replaced it, assisted by us, then you have simply closed up and shut down your objective reasoning processes.
Frank
5 years ago
If I may be so bold I could summarize the arguments I've heard from all of you and find a whopping number of contradictions. I accept this because I'm arguing with a number of people and you're all not going to agree with one another.
That's fine. I don't expect all of you to share the exact same point of view.
Frank
5 years ago
Coyote, there are mujahideen on both sides of the Afghan situation. Why would the Taliban be more legitimate than those that participated in the election as candidates or voters?
Also, being Arabic or a Moslem doesn't mean you're an Afghan. I'm sure Arabs who were among the mujahideen fighting the Soviets have the thanks of the Afghan people. But they don't have the right to rule them regardless of how many weapons the neighbouring dictator supplies them with.
Coyote
5 years ago
My point is Frank, the second great war, not unlike the first, regardless of the different colours of the flags, and the salutes, was all about capitalism, different variations on that theme, but capitalism all the same. It was these rival capitalist states going to war with themselves. And from our vantage point now, we should be able to see, in my view, that there was no real or objective working class interest involved. We just did the dying AGAIN.
Hell man, the choice was between fascist style capitalism, state capitalism masked as socialism, and convential, ordinary old, garden variety rich man's capitalism.
And the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Here, at the end of the day, they are all those same more or less conventional capitalist societies. It was not what we hoped it was, and might as well face up to the fact.
Which doesn't mean that the desirability or need to transform society doesn't exist, 'cause it sure as hell does. Still. It's just that the entire revolutionary process, in my view, got side-tracked and high-jacked by the major ruling class players in WW2, the same as WW1.
We, the working class, were hoodwinked by the Soviet, British, German, and US ruling classes, and our own..., again.
Coyote
5 years ago
Of course there are, the same as there are Shia on both sides of the conflict, and Sunni, in Iraq. That doesn't make the Iraqi election, in the occupation and war conditions in which it was conducted, "legitimate".
And which is why it is up to those Afghan and regional Arabic elements to fight it out for themselves.
We are not anybody's God, or even Moses for that matter. We are not even of the region. Our motives there are no more pure than the "oil and hegemony self interest" that drives the US Empire.
You've come a long way 'round, Frank. Quite surprising. :-)
Coyote
5 years ago
Nor are we Solomon. :-) Mere Kiplingesque White Man's Burden advocate. :-)
Coyote
5 years ago
That's it. I'm burnt. To beddy bye.
You're younger than I, Frank. Not smarter, just younger. :-)
Frank
5 years ago
Sure, capitalist countries fighting each other. Still, some were worse than others. Look at the conditions Germany imposed on those they conquered. They didn't treat a Russian worker the same as a German worker. Even used many of those they conquered as slave labour.
People of the same class share some things but nationalism and culture etc also play a part.
Coyote
5 years ago
And we certainly should say "boo" about it. I don't have to like the Taliban, which I don't, nor do I have to be entirely disengaged from criticising them or giving material assistance to the Afghan people, to the degree I can. What I'm opposed to Frank is, military intervention in the internal affairs of other countries and societies. That's all. Period.
I've seen the long term net effect of that over a long time. It never produces a desired result. Certainly not immediately known to me.
Keep your forces home to deal with invasion of your own territory, as a general principle of international relations. And don't interfere militarily in the internal affairs of other societies and states. Periodic onflict is a condition of human existence within near all societies. All societies go through such periods, with often brutal consequences. They may even have to, as a condition of their evolution.
The other side of that is, of course, outside interference generally only makes matters worse, and at best delays what has to be fought out. And where there is an outside intervention, it almost invariably comes from a larger power with its own selfish material interest in the conflict outcome. There is no purity of heart in any imperialism.
Now, I'm really to bed.